Skyscraping

by Cordelia Jensen

  Sixteen Candles.

  The undertakers go in and out

  of my parents’ bedroom.

  They speak softly,

  finally

  carry him out

  in a black body bag.

  I think about

  the hallway mirror,

  a silent, sturdy witness:

  It’s seen

  Dad making costumes,

  helping us with our homework,

  me sneaking in late,

  fighting,

  now

  the mirror—

  reflecting, empty—

  watches

  him go.

  WHAT’S FALLING

  I dream.

  I enter the bus.

  I see him.

  He’s in my regular seat,

  wrapped in a brown, fur-lined coat.

  Thin blond hair matted against his head.

  He could have been somebody, I think.

  I sit next to him,

  feel him shiver.

  His head bent forward.

  I can see now, he’s hiding something.

  I ask him what he has.

  He shakes his head no.

  Bites his chapped lips.

  Whole body starts to tremble.

  I think about pulling the emergency cord—

  no one else notices he’s shaking.

  There’s a man in a suit. A baby on a lap.

  Preteen girls playing MASH.

  Someone listening to a Walkman loudly.

  Why can’t they see him?

  His body shakes, I try and hold him still.

  But he’s too big. Too long. Items fall

  from his coat.

  A diploma.

  A poem.

  A chess piece.

  A feather.

  I pick them up, stuff them into

  my backpack. His whole body now

  shaking, trembling, dying.

  There’s nothing to do but

  collect what’s falling.

  A tie.

  A bead.

  A slotted spoon.

  A sandwich.

  I say loudly,

  to deaf ears:

  He could have been someone.

  I yell until the bus stops.

  I wake up screaming.

  SOMETHING SOLID

  The wake.

  His mouth’s been stuffed.

  It looks all wrong.

  Like a B actor cast

  to play my father.

  I dare myself to touch his face.

  It feels like wood,

  or colder,

  like glass.

  Chloe gets me some food,

  I pick at it.

  I think about Dylan.

  About Existentialism.

  All those philosophers saying there’s

  nothing out there to believe in.

  And how making something meaningful

  was so important to my dad.

  But now he’s gone.

  Now, he’s the nothing.

  Dylan shows up, as if he knows

  I’m thinking about him.

  He takes my hand.

  I let myself lean into him.

  To feel something warm.

  The crowd swells

  and he knows

  I need to leave it.

  He pulls me to

  the coats and we huddle

  under them.

  We don’t kiss.

  We don’t even talk.

  We just play hangman.

  He names the category:

  Space.

  NOTHINGNESS

  So many people attend the funeral.

  Our teachers, his students,

  neighbors, friends.

  Chloe points out Adam,

  standing with his parents,

  they sneak out the back

  as soon as it’s over.

  I greet the others person by person,

  kiss cheeks,

  nod, say thanks

  when people say sorry.

  After everyone leaves,

  April, Chloe, Dylan and I

  gather the programs

  left behind,

  scattered like this was a play—

  a concert—abandoned

  just after the encore.

  At home,

  I stack the programs neatly.

  Try to iron out the creases

  left

  on the copies of his face.

  NIGHTTIME

  We went to Zabar’s earlier and bought

  Brie

  caviar

  Carr’s crackers—

  what Dad would’ve bought himself.

  We host a party.

  As requested.

  But now, “celebrating” with all these people,

  my friends smoking in the stairwell,

  his friends playing the piano, drinking,

  the world wobbles beneath me.

  All I can think to do

  is lie on his side

  of my parents’ bed.

  That night:

  I dream Dad is dancing,

  like he can hear our music,

  under a spinning disco ball,

  and in his own way

  he keeps the time.

  THE MAN IN THE MOON

  I bathe in moon.

  I find the man

  carved into its face.

  I can’t stop looking.

  Cracked smile.

  Deep well eyes.

  How does he feel hovering

  in this starless New York City sky?

  I get lost in caverns of gray space.

  From the window

  of my bathroom,

  looking out onto the Hudson,

  wonder how it could seem so peaceful

  but hold so much junk.

  I light candles.

  Spin circles in water.

  I no longer count time,

  days tick by.

  ON REPEAT

  A week later,

  light blinking

  over and over

  on my answering machine.

  Gloria, checking in.

  Chloe, asking me to take the Jitney

  to the Hamptons,

  just for the night,

  some big party.

  James asks if April and I

  want to meet for coffee.

  Dylan plays me Phish.

  My college roommate

  asks when can we talk.

  I delete everything but the songs.

  Those I play on repeat.

  ALMOST

  Mom, in the kitchen crying.

  I put my hand on her shoulder,

  ask if she wants to cook something.

  She says she doesn’t know how.

  I hand her an apron.

  Show her how to dice the onions, Dad’s way.

  April joins us midway.

  She opens cans of beans, tomatoes.

  All three of us make Dad’s chili.

  We get it—almost—right.

  We take our time eating.

  April adds extra salt.

  Mom reheats hers in the microwave.

  As we finish up,

  the summer sun lingering

  late into the night,

  I ask Mom if I

  can go with her

  to her studio

  tomorrow.

  HOLDING NEPTUNE

  I.

&
nbsp; Walking in

  feels like entering a memory.

  The last time I was here

  was for one of Mom’s shows,

  years ago,

  before she left for Italy.

  April comes too, we’re outsiders in the hot shop.

  Glassblowers share the huge studio space.

  A warehouse of furnaces burning molten glass.

  Artists work in teams, taking turns

  dipping their rods,

  then blowing into them.

  Mom’s the gaffer today,

  she leads her team.

  We follow her.

  She gathers

  the yellow-red glowing glass

  onto her torch.

  The heat so hot it stings my face,

  I almost have to turn away.

  Mom faces the fire.

  Says hi to some guy named Larry,

  another named Ron.

  Everyone here seems to know her.

  Respect her.

  A fat man at the next station pulls

  white-and-red liquid glass like taffy.

  A younger guy snips it into pieces

  like huge peppermint candies.

  It’s like a circus,

  Mom, the ringleader.

  II.

  Before we start

  making our own art,

  she tells us

  about Wabi-Sabi,

  the Japanese practice of

  putting a thumbprint

  on every piece you create

  to show it is human-made,

  imperfection makes it beautiful.

  She says this is how she approaches her own art,

  and this is how she approaches life too,

  something made,

  imperfect by design.

  I shield Mom’s glass with the paddle

  as she spins the rod,

  an artist named Rose blows through it.

  Mom says that every piece starts as a sphere.

  No matter what you’re making.

  She asks if I want a turn.

  I gaze at the glowing torch.

  Nod, take Rose’s place.

  Mom guides me, says to blow into the rod.

  Tells me my breath’s too shallow,

  she says to use all my force.

  I fight the impulse to give up.

  The rod burns my lips as it spins

  but I keep trying—blowing harder—

  until the glowing blue sphere grows.

  It veers sideways,

  not at all like the round bubbles

  Mom blew before.

  Lopsided.

  Asymmetrical.

  I tell her I want to do it again.

  I want to try to make it perfect, round.

  She says

  art

  is not about

  perfection.

  Remember Wabi-Sabi.

  III.

  Later, we carry the bubble down the winding halls

  to her workstation.

  I gasp—

  a whole solar system is hanging.

  She tells me we are holding Neptune.

  Says it’s the last planet to add.

  Says it’s for me, for my dorm room.

  We hang my imperfect Neptune

  where it belongs,

  the solar system rattles,

  and settles into something beautiful.

  AS HIMSELF

  I wander the apartment

  in Dad’s Texas T-shirt.

  Flick on the TV.

  Off.

  Microwave water for ramen.

  On/off.

  Keep expecting to see Dad.

  It’s been almost a month now

  but still

  I hear him say:

  Mira, ramen is not real food. It’s dorm food.

  Speaking of which, we need to buy you

  new sheets for college. Shower shoes.

  Some days I hear him pour oil into the pan.

  It sizzles.

  Smell onions, carrots, peppers.

  I hear him cough,

  hear his footsteps,

  hear him cry at Hallmark commercials.

  Other days, I hear him make dinner conversation.

  He asks what I’ll be for Halloween this year.

  I tell him I don’t know yet.

  He laughs.

  Says:

  This year, for Halloween, Miranda?

  I’m going as myself.

  I tell him April and I saw Forrest Gump

  four times in one week.

  That he would have loved it,

  how Forrest runs and runs

  across America.

  How Jenny dies at home

  with her family.

  He says:

  Sounds like our kind of movie.

  I tell him I’ve been teaching Mom to cook,

  about my college roommate assignment.

  I tell him that April has taken up running in the park.

  That Mom took us to the studio, made me a

  mobile, told us about Wabi-Sabi:

  And that maybe,

  just like art,

  we are something made, not perfect.

  I tell him that I miss him.

  That I will learn to play chess, take a road trip someday.

  Then, one day, the house is quiet.

  I hear the front door open and

  I hear him say goodbye.

  CUT FROM SKY

  The doorbell rings,

  James is there.

  For the first time I notice

  his eyes—

  the same bright blue

  as Dad’s—circles cut from sky.

  He tells me Mom asked him to help her

  sort some of Dad’s teaching files.

  I ask him—

  because Mom hardly knows how—

  if, after we’re done, he could take me

  out in the family car.

  Give me a lesson.

  He arches his eyebrows,

  a new piercing hangs from one.

  He says to wait

  just a minute—

  he’ll get the keys—

  we’ll do that first.

  Driving sounds a lot more fun than filing.

  BLIND SPOTS

  James pulls the car around the corner.

  My stomach lurches.

  He switches to the passenger side—

  Me, the driver.

  James shares the secret to driving well:

  not just having awareness of other people

  but believing you, yourself,

  are in control.

  I nod.

  He turns on the radio.

  “Alex Chilton” by the Replacements starts playing.

  I drive down West End,

  windows down, we both hum along.

  Twenty minutes later,

  up and around the neighborhood,

  he tells me I’m ready for the highway.

  I say but there are so many people—

  he says they want to live too.

  I can’t help but laugh.

  Turn left on 79th.

  Back to the Henry Hudson, 9A.

  When I merge onto the highway,

  a red car honks at me loudly,

  then swerves into another lane.

  James tells me it’s okay,

  that was my blind spot.

  I make it four more exits,

  staying in the right lane,

  without another person
honking at me.

  A smile breaks from my lips.

  For the first time in weeks, I feel something—possibility.

  I tell him Dad always said you were a good teacher.

  He says he heard I was a good student.

  I ask if we can do it again,

  if he thinks I could pass my test

  before I leave for school.

  He says

  he knows I can

  if we practice

  every day.

  We park and take the elevator up,

  me with a smile.

  James in my peripheral vision,

  still humming “Alex Chilton,”

  and I realize that blind spots

  aren’t just

  about driving.

  STARSHELLS

  I.

  That night, Chloe and Dylan kidnap me,

  take me to the ocean.

  They have a surprise, they say.

  In Chloe’s Volvo,

  I stretch my dad’s T-shirt

  over my knees.

  Chloe tells me I need to change clothes,

  there’s no excuse for bad hygiene.

  I can’t see the ocean

  but, with the window down,

  I can smell, almost taste,

  the salt.

  II.

  They bought me a telescope.

  We watch stars firework across the night.

  Up close, like Mr. Lamb’s slides.

  I stargaze,

  Dylan hugs me from behind.

  He kisses me once,

  Chloe turns cartwheels

  in the sand.

  Pieces of shell glint

  all around us,

  like thousands of stars

  rained to Earth.

  I gather one for each of them.

  A deep blue mussel for Chloe.

  For Dylan, a heart-shaped cockle.

  For James, two shiny jingles.

  Mom, a soft white slipper shell.

  Rainbow-striped scallop for April.

  Angel’s wings

  for Dad.

  And for me,

  a

  Venus clam.

  WITH CAUTION

  Two more weeks of daily lessons,

  on busy streets, the highway,

  one week left before school starts,

  James says it’s time.

  His eyes gloss over.

  I wonder

  if missing someone feels the same

  inside every person.

  Ride the subway uptown,

  enter a tan box of a building.

  For the first time,

  I say a prayer—

  for Dad to keep me