I took my lessons at her kitchen
table while she potted at the stove. Mr. Polio tinselled everything in her
apartment. His metallic grins creaked open the cupboard hinges and chattered
the silverware. He complicated her legs with gimbals of steel and tricked up her
steps with unfaithful aluminum.
Marie would set up a cute tableau of
kitsch for me to sketch, a porcelain Jack and Jill with a square of upholstery
fabric and a plastic daisy. Then she would sigh into her wheelchair to tinker the
strings of her guitar or draw a picture that she clipped from a magazine. they
were always landscapes, views of gray mountains leadened by the pencil limbs of a girl
tumbling after.
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