The Pushcart prize, 2000, XXIV : best of the small presses by Henderson Bill 1941-

Author:Henderson, Bill, 1941-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: American literature, American literature
Publisher: Wainscott, N.Y. : Pushcart Press
Published: 2000-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

channels that play music. Like the radio. Their daughters stand in front of the television and rock their tiny hips from side to side. They say dance? and when nobody will, they say help? When any group of four musicians appears—three guitars, one drum kit—their daughters say Hootie. An old clip of the Beatles runs, and they pause to count and then they say Hootie. All the younger cousins laugh. These cousins have come to the age of first sly thoughts, and so they want to teach Hannah and Sarah how to say Mom, could you get me a beer? A pack of Marlboro reds, please. The young cousins want to teach them to say fire truck, hoping that the whole shiny long word will prove too much for their little mouths and collapse into obscenity. The cousins have come to a place that might as well be across the whole world from Hannah and Sarah. They know all the words for what they want to say, these young cousins do, and they know what the words mean and this knowledge has made them mute.

Their daughters say outside, and Louise and Lana put them into the arms of the college-aged cousins. The snow has stopped falling, gathered behind clouds and held its breath. There is in the afternoon air north of Hoffman Estates toward South Harrington the sense that something or someone has asked a question of great moment and is waiting for an answer to be spoken. From Grandmas they walk, the mothers, the daughters and the college-aged cousins, beside Poplar Creek. Sometimes there are deer nosing the deadfall at the waters edge, and the college-aged cousins would love to see Hannah and Sarah get their first glimpse of deer. They walk all the way out to the lake, a pond really, drying up smaller every year, not big enough to name, and so everyone has, privately, like wishing. Louise and Lana ask the cousins what they are learning, and the cousins tell them, the words for business, the words for economics, anthropology, genetics, literature. They ask, so what do you do for fun, and then their daughters repeat the cousins' words, catch them up in the thin nets of their voices so they will not fall into the lake and be lost, or roll away into Poplar Creek. Their daughters repeat, lover, field hockey, they say gfe^ club, and the sound rises and drops over the lake like a shiny penny to wish on, ^ee, glee, glee.

The wind blows in a strange, aching gust, like a scratch, like a tear in fabric and it begins to snow again. Their daughters recognize it now—they say no and then they say Daddy. The six women walk back to Grandmas, two cousins, the mothers and their daughters. The older

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.