How Strawberry Pie Sounds

I saw a man with wet eyes holding his hand on his belly. One could tell he loved tacos and had a wife that knew the lyrics to the theme song of Family Ties. His hands were well-washed; he liked to do the dishes.  Each evening he’d squirt a stream of lemon Palmolive over his knuckles and cup his hands under the warm water till bubbles rose from his skin. He had an intellectual smile and a janitor’s neck.  Deep in his closet, he secreted away a box of poems he wrote to a girl in high school. Late at night, his head sloshy from beer, he’d pull these out, smooth the creases, and read them furtively under the yellow eye of a flashlight.

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A wide-faced woman with the stern hair of a small town government clerk ate a caramel from the candy bin in the grocery store without paying the quarter. Her son left three days ago for college.  She has an unkempt house of pale brick and tiny windows and a husband that’s thumb-clumsy with hammers.  She’ll hum Justin Bieber songs to herself in the shower and wake each night at 3:17am without knowing why.  She is fond of saying consequences are things that happen to other people and she adores all shades of blue except ice because that one reminds her of her mother. 

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Also a little girl, clutching a doll to her ribs with both hands.  She breathes like a tired puppy and has the mouth of a librarian. One can imagine her sweating on a school bus seat when football players jostle to the rear or holding her knees together in church when she’s older.  Of course she wears socks to bed and once ripped the petals off a flower.

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I saw another man with small feet taking large steps. His shoes were shiny and his tie too short. The tie flapped in an unappealing way. He walked as if he were proving something to his father or ex-wife.  His car probably needed shocks and would bounce up and down for thirty feet after he ignored the speed bumps, intent on moving forward. 

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I saw a girl who knew she was better than me.  She had a name that felt common in the mouth, a third toe longer than the second, a scar below her navel through which her future motherhood had escaped. She had dreams of being a redhead or a police officer or the wife of a bouncer.  She stood supremely at ease, like she was rich and possessed no faults. Peppermint ice cream fascinated her and she worried each time she had a stomach cramp. 

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In the post office, there was a faint woman that moved the way chrome glinted.  She had an edge to her wrists, a thinness that made one nervous at first glance.  It was easy to assume she was ill, or self-obsessed, but her eyes were those of one at ease in the faintly green steam of a bowl of collards. She knew how to make biscuits from scratch. Her hands were deft with flour. She was talking to the clerk, answering questions, looking into his small, round glasses and nodding. The clerk leaned forward to hear her. Then he made a joke and she laughed,  a rich sound, bright and loud as strawberry pie. And she was more beautiful in that moment than anything. Clouds were set free in her face and everyone in the post office was mesmerized by her humor. That her throat so soft in speech could release such naked abandon showed us all something human.

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These are some of the things I saw today. What about you?