Music interspersed with static. A static that brambles the mind. I am tired of being on hold.
The music, the static, a form of reprogramming. A piano, faint, in the background. It’s easy to play only the white keys.
The music sounds like it’s coming through water. Like a dream of the Titanic.
Finally an answer, then a transfer to the wrong line. More music. More static.
The music is the song of the abuser, dancing underwater, his suit clinging to his body like kelp.
And coral is a dead dress that tears the skin.
This hold music. Please hold. Just hold. Hold on. Hold me.
Now the word hold is foreign. The music behind the static has shifted to something more hopeful. The music is walking onto the shore, shaking off its water.
Trying to make a phone call to the South is like trying to call another era. Where is the telegraph when I need it?
And when they finally answer, their speech is heavy and slow, as if they’ve been up all night drinking. How can such an outdated processor function in today’s age of quick thought and quicker response times?
I spread molasses on my tongue to match their speech, using my long-suppressed Oklahoma drawl to my advantage. I lace my sentences with phrases they might like. I say “bless your heart” and find myself meaning it.
The indoctrination is working. The static begins to sing.
I ask them to show me the water. They take me to the cove. They ask to be alone with me. The water is static.
I ask them to show me the field. They take me to thick brush.
Their thoughts open like magnolia blossoms.
We talk of Tennessee, its sibilance, the snakes suffocating its midsection.
Tennessee is a single closet where I hid from the man who was made of hands.
We do not talk of Carolina. Sweet Carolina. The South and I will get to that in time. First, I must remove the thorns and bring up the salt I have swallowed.
They ask if I was the first. The first what, I reply. The first to swallow the water, or the first to purge it?
They ask for the name of the person I’ve called to speak with, not knowing the name has already been uttered beneath static. It is in the cove, in the thick brush. I arrange burs into small groups. I label each group: the ones that pricked; the ones that drew blood; the ones that tangled my hair.
A dream of partridges flies through the moment. I tell them the name is Daedalus, master craftsman. I wait for Icarus to fall.
Avoid the cove. Avoid the thick brush. I am being as clear as I can be. I am speaking with partridges in my mouth.
A Greek crime mars the pastoral.
Now he has a name, but is it Daedalus or Icarus?
I am wearing the dress of dead coral. I have a funeral to attend.
I ply the needle until I am stitched into this garment. I am the fixed place, the fixed time, the in-and-out motion of metal. I am the point and the empty head. I will wear my brittle gown to the ball.
The line “A Greek crime mars the pastoral” is from Wunderkammer, by Cynthia Cruz.
The last section is in response to Friedrich Nietzsche’s observation that “Women … speak like creatures who have for millennia sat at the loom, or plied the needle, or been childish with children.”
Dana Henry Martin 