Springtime

The thaw unlocked in crusts and banks of ice and snow a courage which, in those trickling weeks, would pool and run in meek streams toward Michaela’s every where.

Walking before dawn to her shift at The McDonald’s, the brook along the curb would hop and trail her darkly down the dry concrete. Mr. Swann would stand custodian outside her afternoon classes, mopping up what met him at the door. Even on the Sabbath, drips would slide along her sister’s stoop to drop where she sat reading to her niece.

The runoff carried to Michaela oil, black flakes, wrapper corners, crushes of fall leaves, and this crisp encouragement.

She felt it first a flush of yes, a sparkling bloom of affirmation of the present effort. As trees began to pink and parks to fill with dogs and skirts, she felt it ushering her somewhere older, dangerous and far away, full of green and moving bodies. Minds.

And when she drank it.

When she licked or cupped and sipped the melt she saw in bursts of indirect light the faces of tall children, known and red with play, intelligent in distinct styles so beautiful, so untestably special.

So she filled the drink machine with syrups.

So she ran flashcards for her midterm on the Civil War.

So she listened to Dan read Othello by the goalpost on the field as the seep found round their bums and the breeze moved through their shirts and they shivered.

“Thou art sure of me:—go, make money:—I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again …”

____
Jenny Polst lives in Elko County, Nevada.