Double yellow
“Allow me to walk you home
Allow me to sit with you a while in the kitchen”
— “Allow me,” Kino
In the dream he's washing dishes in the house of a girl he knew in school. While her mother rests her feet, while her sister turns cartwheels. There is nothing between him and the girl, no touch, only a gauze, a hum, of understanding.
In another dream, she's serving him coffee out of a French press. The cups are tiny, even six are not enough, he says. He misses his flight. He's trying to arrange for someone to collect his many bags, which made the flight, but the screen of his phone does not register his fingers.
*
In the old country, they said if you sat at the corner of the table, you'd never marry.
Again and again she sat at the corner, trying to convey to her mother that she would never leave her, while secretly she plotted to leave her.
Her mother rested her feet, her sister turned cartwheels.
The front of the house finished in clapboard siding. The back in brick.
*
I'll know the house when I see it.
Wildflowers, new potatoes in the ground, the blush of tomatoes, a flowering dogwood, promise, abundance. A red door and a red roof and a cat sunning itself in the window, our window, our cat. Our house. Our abundance.
A chocolate cake in the refrigerator. Cake and fridge: a sign that these people really believe in themselves. These people believe they deserve good things, this side of the ultimate double yellow.
Divinity School goes out at sunset every Sunday. Because everyone wants to come home to a lamp-lit house.
