Apple by Eric Gansworth

Author:Eric Gansworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Levine Querido

Electric Blanket as Ouija Board in Sixteen Parts

1.

I listen to radio signals from Toronto, humming

across Lake Ontario into my bedroom speakers. They

suggest different places I’ve never seen, beyond

glimpses flickering across our TV screen. Transmissions

and radio songs are clearer at night, with less interference.

A New Wave rushes through the mesh, rippling

the hairs deep inside my ears with the sound

of unfamiliar music that demands to be heard,

just the same notes rearranged and refracted,

mysteries to be unpacked and interpreted.

These songs shifting in and out of understanding,

remind me of the occasions my mother pulls the Ouija

Board from the crawl space where we keep Christmas

ornaments, and clothes no one can remember why we saved.

2.

Demanding answers to our secret desires, we

stare at the board with its alphabet, its Sun

and Moon, its Yes and No, and at some point,

every one of my brothers and sisters rest

their fingers on the planchette,

(the little heart-

shaped table with its

circular window at its

center, like a bull’s-eye).

They let it slide freely over letters

and numbers until they arrive at the words

gracing the bottom of the board: G-O-O-D

B-Y-E, their belongings already secretly

sorted into what to take,

what to leave behind.

3.

When they take its advice, and come home,

for Christmas or birthdays, they offer

our mother gifts of warmth for Christmas

and her birthday, like gloves, scarves,

boots. They know when they leave that each

person still living there, will have more trips

out in winter, to draw water from the pump,

for baths, for cooking, and drinking.

4.

Filling the water pail is a chore

you cannot deny, or leave until

your supply is almost gone. You may need

to boil water on the stove, to run into

the frozen pump mechanism. We could melt

snow to accomplish this, but our mother believes

that you should only pour water into a well

that the water had been drawn from. Maybe

she got that wisdom from the spirits

trapped by the planchette’s heart.

(It seems like a long message

for unhurried spirits

to spell out, letter by letter,

but maybe the afterlife isn’t

that busy a place.)

5.

They never leave gift sizes open for

interpretation, for she might give

away warmer gloves or better insulated boots

to anyone else wanting to keep the cold

out, too, often finding a way, anyhow.

One brother, in his quest, shops for presents

aware that, in his new trailer, they can nudge

up the thermostat and warm air will rush

into every room in their rectangular house

with ductwork running beneath it like

a circulatory system, their furnace humming

louder whenever they want to raise

their comfort level. He wanders

stores, knowing he can’t build central

heating into our drafty house to boost

our two kerosene heaters that radiate

heat and soot into our lives and lungs,

when he discovers the perfect gift.

6.

The electric blanket, with its wires

like veins, sending heat through cloth,

will give the person beneath the covers

the illusion that they live in a warm

house for the hours they sleep. Unlike so many

other gifts, my mother accepts this without question

and throws it on her bed the night she receives

it, keeping it on, the orange bulb on its adjustment

knob serving as a night-light in her cold back bedroom.

7.

We all love it from afar, briefly lying

on top of it evenings she isn’t home,

wondering what it would be like to sleep

beneath its electric hum for an entire night.

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