Totters
by Mauren Sherbondy
Maureen Sherbondy's forthcoming poetry book is The Body Remembers. Her work has appeared in Stone Canoe, New York Quarterly, Louisiana Literature, and other journals. Maureen lives in Durham, NC. Visit her at www.maureensherbondy.com
After the woman miscarried three times, she gave up on trying to grow human life inside her. While grocery shopping one day, she carefully selected two large russet potatoes.
At home, she set the potatoes in a velvet-lined shoebox. Every day the woman played lullabies and other songs about farming and transformation. They shifted side-to-side when “Old McDonald” echoed in the room.
One morning, she discovered white sprouts emerging like legs from her potato babies. She named the growing totter babies Fiona and Gerald. When Fiona and Gerald developed arms, she buried them in the back yard near the weeping willow, watering the totters daily for six months. Fiona and Gerald turned into potato toddlers and jumped out of the soil.
Whenever they ran inside the house, Fiona and Gerald left eyes and dirt on the floor. The woman didn’t mind their messes; she loved the totters more than she’d ever loved anything. On a Friday in March, her husband returned from a business trip with a hankering for French fries and baked potatoes. The mother stood protectively in front of her totter toddlers with her entire body.
Then she buried her husband in the yard.
