Geography Lesson: Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
____Habitat for Humanity, 1999
The way bread rises sometimes, uneven,
so too these mountains. High pines
steeple the land where white light
stirs needles to breezy greens.
Terrell, captivated by a tape measure,
watches me work from his tricycle.
I hold it to him, gift-like. He reaches tiny fingers
for the metal tab and pulls. This might
be as much magic as he knows: the yellow
ribbon follows him as he steps back and back.
Monique's round face in the place where a window
will be. My thumb steadies the screw. I smile
and she watches. My wrist aches from this,
the thousandth twist. Mothers that look
no older than sisters scoop up small children,
shoo away spindly dogs. We have to watch where
we walk: the ground suspiciously spongy: no
indoor plumbing here. A tiny Ked lies on its side,
a table leg stabbing its heel, cracked baby food jar,
part of a mattress. I can't figure out why Monique
has singled me out, when there are teenagers
busy beside me, pony tails pulsing between earphones
as they hammer, paint. Between trailers rusty cars angle
oddly, some nose down in the mud, tireless, each jammed:
cooking pots, bed frame, a three-legged chair with sagging
seat, loose stuffing. A raccoon (sans head) nailed
to a tree trunk, arms extended. Some of the helpers pose
for pictures beside it. Terrell is measuring everything
in sight: the handles on his trike, the tire marks
in the mud. There's a pane now in the space
between Monique and me. She stands on a stool in the mud,
lifts pudgy hands to touch the glass. Inside, I place my hands
up to hers, my thick gloves dividing us.
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