Haylee

The Boatman’s Lure

Lined inside with tar, the boat harbors quiet.  The Boatman sits, his tacklebox light.  Time is still, apart from the hush of lakewater against the hull.  The cobalt sky is spread over the water, rippling like linen sheets.  Forward he pushes into the dark inlet where beech branches sway.  

You read Richard Bode as I fish.  

You ask me, “Abel, what’s a jib?"

I tell you, “I wouldn’t know it from a hole in the wall.  I ain’t never been out to sea.”

“Would you ever want to?” You posed.  “Go out to sea, I mean.”

“Not a chance in Hell,” I scoff and cast my line.  

You smile like you know I’m lying.

Rain Clouds weigh like stones in the sky; cattails sprout between rocks; and hay bales look like boulders in the darkness.  The frogs and crickets noise, familiar.  He looks out to the coast only to find darkness. He continues home.  

My switchblade peeled the wood from itself, before the blade met my thumb with perfectly aged confidence.  “So help me– You keep your eyes on that stick, Abel!  You’re a’ lucky I ain’t hidden your blade so you won’t never find it again” You said, madder than a hound dog, but I knew you secretly loved those little knick knacks I made you.  You kept em’ all on your dresser, every last one.

The moonlight carves the Boatman’s path, and he drifts further through the blue until land nears.  

I pull a red harmonica from my jacket pocket and play it into the air, something as familiar as coffee in the morning or a warm glass of milk before bed.  Even though I’ve played as long as I can remember, I ain’t never sought another song.  I thought that a’ one just sounded too purty.

“I know you get tired a’ that one, but it’s alls I know how to play.” I’d say to Ruth, but she’d listen all the same, homey like a butter spread on sourdough.

Soon he reaches the dock by the house, where every exhale sticks to the silence.  Outside the windchime talks; the welcome mat is stained with red clay mud; and the lattice is scratched.  

Once inside, the Boatman hangs up his equipment.  He carries the tacklebox to the bedroom, where a flickering sconce hums on the wall.  He opens it on the bed and inside is a lone photograph– a woman with braided silver hair under a plum tree.

The unforgiving rain outside becomes a faint static in my ears, as I turn inward to avoid the obtrusive draft.  My cheeks are stained a watermelon hue, and my skin prickles from the cool, summer wind, offset only by the sugary warmth of the tiny, droopy-eyed puppy in my arms.  The air is tight and smells of wet hay.  On the roof of the warping plastic doghouse, we lay together, bodies contorting into swirls like wood grain.  I keep readjusting to ease the fiery sensation in my back and neck.  I know the only remedy is to part ways, yet I only toss and turn, never get up.    

Tight and cramped,

the indent of our silhouettes lay.

A gravestone of our shared time,

as if memory alone is too fleeting.

Warm brown fur where ivory will seep.

Honeyed amber eyes fighting the oncoming slumber.

Every breath inflates your whole body,

like you’re trying consume the world and everything it offers

before your next exhale.

You lay, taking the icy breeze head-on,

as if you’ve never felt the warmth to miss.

Sea and mountain lay between us.

All of my shirts are still painted in your fur.

The Killing Kind 

You tried to pull me with you.

Ligament from ligament, tendrils 

splitting leaving my person grated and agonized

I know it because I feel it

Faint, evergreen

Unhealing, heaving

I hear your voice in my own

folding pitches, breaking at the crest

My laugh infected by your own

The staccato-- pace-- gasps

You’re Me as much as I

I’ve invited you in, 

door left ajar,

to get the stench of mildew out.

The draft

noisy, unnerving, nesting

frigid touch trailing flesh

But I love the way the curtains billow

and the birds chirp hymns 

I can’t help but feel like I don’t get It,

I don’t get You

Your stillness bruises me,

baffles me, berates me

I don’t understand! 

Are You looking in at Me,

as I look in at You?

Won’t You 

look?     

You tell me not to forget,

as if You don’t perfume the tomorrows.

Your stain in every generation, monument, and memorial.

You occupy the wheat fields and fresh plums

Harboring kindness and impulsivity

Smuggling secrets 

only You possess.

Oh, and You’re evil with it!

Cruel and cutting

You’re earnest like arteries bursting

Unafraid and barbarous

Flare discarded in favor of

flight.

Cast from the waltzing teff

Ash triumph, perennial flames of benevolence

The heat pulsates, molten

flicking its heady scent 

Ash terror, perennial flames of malevolence

I’ve soured with your Absence.

you’ve faded into the Noiseless.

My only choice is to resent you,

lest you consume me

and force a Gentleness onto me

that will singe me from the inside out.

The Leech

Is it the blood you desire or the bite?

Gorged and indulgent, 

Gluttonous and craving, 

scarlet sloshing with every movement.

Is it a bigger host?  Better, sweeter, or more tender?

Something that will last?  To latch onto and suckle dry?

Something fresh and unfamiliar?  Ripe like a freshly plucked cherry?

So black it’s blue, so red it’s black.

Black like the plague,

Like plaque,

Like parting ways,

Like paradise.

If I gave you a story,

Would you too suck it dry?

Nibble meat from marrow

Harvest the hide and hide the hunger?

I still feel you on my skin.

I still miss what you stole.  

The Japanese Oleander

From the moment the sky teases daylight, Mr. Haruki is there to capture it, primed with his gardening shears and woven hat.  He’d already made his rounds by the time the eager recruits arrived, fresh like morning dew drops, and they’d greet Mr. Haruki like he too grew from the soil.  With dark moles scattering his nose and a furrowed brow carved by years in the sun, Mr. Haruki was comparable to a vegetable-bearing plant amongst seedlings, and he could easily be found in the fields, as his practiced hands were the only ones without gloves.  

The tilled dirt was wet against the knees of his overalls, made worse by the chill of changing seasons.  The farm hands were less too, as most were with their families for the holidays.  Mr. Haruki persisted, no matter.  Deftly, he fostered the remaining spinach plants, taking delicate care to prevent overwintering the shriveling crops.  The first snow wiped out the bulk of the produce, leaving Mr. Haruki with no remaining margin of error.  

“Hey,” the voice of a young man carried through the tight air, “Mr. Harukiiii” he prodded, humming out the last syllable.  The student– Koji, if Mr. Haruki recalls correctly, is one of the only volunteers who has a knack for gardening; the old man wouldn’t call him a big help– he still needed supervision and a mild overwatering problem, but he wouldn’t call him a hindrance either, he supposed.  

  Koji ran up to the fenceline and stood over the hunched over gardener, an easy grin on his rosie face.  

“Good morning,” Mr. Haruki announced placatingly, “What do you need, kid?”

“Ah, I need you to sign this paper for me.”  He waved the sheet of paper in the air and pulled an ink pen from his puffy winter coat.  

Mr. Haruki wiped his brow with his rolled-up sleeve and looked up to the boy, prompting him to continue.  

“It’s for school.  ‘Need your signature to prove I volunteered here for the fall.”  Koji explained, letting an arm rest against the wooden fencepost.  

With a quick wipe of his hands against his overalls, Mr. Haruki, tight-lipped, wordlessly took the pen and paper and signed at the bottom, like he had for so many students.  Because he worked at the local university garden, this was a common occurrence, so the procedure was as quick and thoughtless as spraying for insects.  

“I figured I’d try to get the rest of my hours before I went back home for break,” Koji continued conversationally.  “What are you going to do for winter break, Mr. Haruki?”

“I’ll be here like always,” he replied, redirecting his focus back onto the spinach, and Koji laughed before saying his goodbyes.  Mr. Haruki watched his brand new sneakers heading towards the group of boys waiting for him at the entrance.  He plucked the weeds with a little more force than necessary.   

When the sky turned dark and his fingers turned brittle, Mr. Haruki made his way home in the silence of the night.  Dinner time had long passed for the family, so he reheated the leftover’s his wife, Babette, had prepared for him.  It was then that he surrendered to the exhaustion wracking his form, and he folded forward on the kitchen counter and let his sullen eyes flutter shut, the humming of the microwave like a lullaby.  

It was then that he felt a light tap to his back, which was knobby like the eyes on a sprouted potato.  He turned around to see his daughter with a warm plate of food in her hands; it seemed as if he slept through the microwave’s timer.  She sat the meal on the countertop, facing her father with a worried look on her face.

Mr. Haruki quickly straightened, asking with forced casualty, “How was your day?” Plants he understood but daughters?  Not so much.  

“I’m alright,” she said with an unwavering gaze.  She hesitated before adding, “What about you?”  

“I’m okay.”  His voice was tired.

“I have something for you,” she spoke, a grin sprouting from her cheeks.  From behind her back, she pulls a sealed envelope and puts it into her father’s hands– a letter from the university addressed to Nao Miri.  Knobby fingers peeled back the seal  and unfolded the sheet of paper.  It was an acceptance letter; Mr. Haruki’s daughter would be the first in the family to get an education.  His gaze lingered on the paper, tracing its texture with his fingertips, dirt under his fingernails.  And, for the first time this season, Mr. Haruki felt something akin to satisfaction blossoming.  

  He wasted no time in the morning, dawning his finest striped button-up and a clean pair of slacks.  It had been a long time since their last family outing— maybe their trip to Akita city a few years back; but here they all were, excited like spring buds awaiting their time slot to meet with the financial advisor.  

Despite being a long term worker on campus, Mr. Haruki had never been inside the financial building.  The ceilings were tall and traced by crown molding.  The wallpaper was a dual-toned beige in a hexagonal print, and the floors were a glossy wood.  The seats were plush and everything smelled of books.  He spent the thirty minute wait admiring the lobby.

Finally, as a satisfied family left, the Miri family was invited in.

            “I work here actually.”  Mr. Haruki said.   “No, no I’m not a professor.  I’m a senior gardener for the University farms behind the agriculture building.”  

           “I understand.”  Mr. Haruki heard himself say.  “Yes, I understand.  Thank you.”

            The wait was longer than the meeting.  It was quick and painful— dead before it ever bloomed.  The price was way beyond what they could afford, and, just like that, Mr. Haruki’s life wilted a little more. 

            The garden maintenance was especially hard that day; he couldn’t fight off the dejection he felt, so caring for dying crops was growing increasingly hard for the gardener.  

           “Hey, Mr. Haruki!” Naoki, a student worker, called out.  “Whew!  It’s cold out here,” she began, “Anyway, Mr. Sato was looking for you; I can help over here while you talk to him!” Naoki said warmly.  

He bowed to her in kind before meeting the faculty member, who generally had something to say about new recruits or training procedures; however, when he approached, something foreign was in the air, rancid as pesticides and prickly as thorns.  

“Yes, sir, that’s me.  The students generally just call me Mr. Haruki, correct.”  Mr. Haruki began, ever civilly.  “I appreciate that; it’s not always easy.”

The man then dropped the news to the gardener.

“I see.”

“I understand, sir.  Please have my final paycheck sent in the mail.”

He had been fired.  After 15 arduous years of nurturing students and plants alike, he was let go just like that, as expendable as a pappus on a dandelion.  Apparently, so many students began volunteering that longtime employees were no longer necessary.  The students that Mr. Haruki trained would be taking the very position in which his livelihood depended upon. 

He didn’t go home that day.  He couldn’t possibly face his family after his repeated failure.  So, here, at the park his mom took him to as a child, Mr. Haruki sat, drinking sake and sprinkling next season’s seeds to the hungry pigeons.  Every time the memories of today popped into Mr. Haruki's mind, he took another sip.  Empty bottles littered the cement, the lamp post reflecting off the bottles and casting a green hue on the ground.  He grabbed the leaves that had accumulated over the years in his pockets and threw those into the flock of pigeons as well.  That was until one pigeon began acting strangely.  Its small, gray form began convulsing sickly until it quietly layed on the floor and stopped moving completely.  The other birds continued feasting.  Mr. Haruki looked at what he had thrown at the pigeon to eat, and it clicked what he had done.  He shooed the others from the dead pigeon and quietly thanked it before leaving the park and heading home.  

Something in Mr. Haruki changed that day.  He exchanged his green thumb for red hands.  His fury culminated into a singular plan:  the Japanese Oleander, fatally poisonous if ingested.  Mr. Haruki planned to splice the Japanese Oleander with the different flowering vegetables of the garden– in the greenhouses, the flowerbeds, the herbs growing in the cafeteria, and the fields where he spent so many a day.  

They would reap what he sowed.