"Figures (poem)" by James Andrew Bowers

Figures


I see the blood trickle down, then off her heel
she’s hurt herself again,
“It’s all becoming clear,” she says
“Like the bright sun after a heavy rain.”

I look over the flat plains to the center
on top of a hill is one large tree.
“I can climb that,” she says.
“The tree?” I ask.
She shyly smiles, “no, I meant the hill.”
smiling back, I reply, “but wouldn’t be greater to climb the tree?”
“I guess that it would,” she nods.

Then she stops and looks at the blood on her leg
“I hurt myself again,” she says
Her eyes seem to be looking at something I cannot see
“I noticed,” I said
Just then, a lock of hair that she had tucked behind her ear
fell down and brushed against her cheek.
As it fell, she tilted her head to one side
as she often did when my hand touched her face.

“You know I love the way your had caresses my face.”
As she said that,
her eyes seemed to focus back to reality
just long enough to grab mine and leave again.
“That was your hair that just touched you, not my hand.”
“I know that, but it so much reminded me of the way your hand feels.”

“Let’s go sit under the tree,” she says.
“Why not up in the branches?” I ask.
I see her looking out if the corner of her eye
and hear her try to suppress a laugh.

So, foot over foot we went,
and after a brief look at the sky,
she turns her head towards me.
“Do you know what I’ve been
thinking about?” she whispered.
I shook my head to tell her no.
“I’ve been thinking about laying down,”
and as she said that, her voice began to rise to its normal volume,
“under a stampede of pearly white horses
with hooves like biting teeth.”
“Sounds painful,” I laughed.
Glaring at me, but with a smile still on her face, she says,
“About as painful as me falling out of that tree
and hitting all the branches on the way down.”

“But still, don’t you think it would be fun to try?” I persisted.
“What, laying down beneath a stampede of pearly white horses?”
the way she asked, I could tell she knew what I had meant.
then we both glanced at the blood on her leg, and back at each other.
“And since you’re not going to ask how I hurt myself,
I’ll tell you.  I tried to climb that tree while you were napping.”



- James Andrew Bowers  Jan 11, 1996