Category: Lewis Nordan

Lewis Nordan

Alice leaned first one way and then the other, down the line of children. She said, Is everybody understanding this?”One child said, “The misuse of power is the root of all evil?”Alice said, “Well….”Another child said, “There is no justice on the earth?”Alice said, “Well…”Another child said, “We are all alone in the world?”Alice said, “Well…”Another child said, “The greatest depth of our loss is the beginning of true freedom?”Alice said, “Well…”Another child said, “The disposal of human waste is the responsibility of the brokenhearted?”These were all phrases Alice had put on the chalkboard after other field trips. It occurred to Alice, hearing these phrases now, that she might have attempted to do too much with a class of fourth graders. She was willing to admit to some excesses.Alice said, “Just listen.

Lewis Nordan

She said, “Daddy thinks that all the world’s magic is almost evolved out.”I thought of Roebuck Lake, its swamps and sloughs and loblollies and breaks of cypress and cane, its sunken treetops and stobs and bream beds and sleepy gar rolling over and over and over, its baptizing pools and bridges and mussels and mosquitoes and turkey vultures and, now in the drought, the gray flaking mud-flats and logs crowded with turtles and sometimes a fat snake yawning its tame old cottony mouth like a well-fed dog in a pen.I said, “Is that what the freak show is?”She said, “Dirty miracles.

Lewis Nordan

In my mind, I gave the woman gifts. I gave her a candle stub. I gave her a box of wooden kitchen matches. I gave her a cake of Lifebuoy soap. I gave her a ceilingful of glow-in-the-dark planets. I gave her a bald baby doll. I gave her a ripe fig, sweet as new wood, and a milkdrop from its stem. I gave her a peppermint puff. I gave her a bouquet of four roses. I gave her fat earthworms for her grave. I gave her a fish from Roebuck Lake, a vial of my sweat for it to swim in.

Lewis Nordan

In a little while they were kissing. In a little while longer, they made their slow sweet love.The iron bed sounded like a pine forest in an ice storm, like a switch track in a Memphis trainyard, like the sweet electrical thunder of habitual love and the tragical history of the constant heart. Auntee finished first, and then Uncle soon after, and their lips were touching lightly as they did.The rain was still falling and the scritch owl was still asleep and the dragonflies were hidden like jewels somewhere in deep brown wet grasses, nobody knew where.Uncle rolled away from his wife and held onto her hand, never let it go, old friend, old partner, passionate wife.