all-Holly-day

textos por Holly Anderson, desta vez não traduzidos.

A Piece of Pie

Well, goddamn it, I was driving due west across the whole wild fire conflagrated, smoke-choked, low-to-no-visibility war-mongering country to be with you. Really. And so sorry about this voicemail but I was driving out to become a gardening guru and live happily everwhatever with you. Really. My trunk's still full of tools and catalogs and bee boxes. And I only stopped off I-80 looking for a slab of homemade pie because these piles of clouds had me dreaming about meringue riding high on a hefty slice of pie and Lyman, Wy. looked just like 'Lemon, Wy.' when the blank miles stacked up so hypnotically. And Lyman was the next exit so in retrospect all seems uh, preordained, you know?

Don't get me wrong — you're going to be fantastically successful giving high colonics to corrupted bodies just waiting for your special acidophilous flush and sorry I couldn't ever let you near me with your little green practice hose but like you always said my body is my temple — so stay the hell away from — I'm digressing, sorry but, there was absolutely no way of knowing this Cowboy Inn Cafe on the sandy edge of nowhere would serve nine kinds of fresh baked pie: coconut custard, chocolate custard, rhubarb, strawberry creme, banana creme, blueberry, gooseberry, lemon and pecan. No way of knowing these pies would be baked six days a week by a rangy, big knuckled bullrider from South Dakota named Owen Slides Off. And I had no way of knowing then that we'd soon spend every spare minute upstairs in a simulated wood-grain paneled room. Way up some crooked stairs devouring each other as these clouds that brought me to Exit 41 in the first place clamber across a herd of bleached blue skies.

Mobile breaking up now.
Please forgive me all my appetites.

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The Night She Slept with a Bear

A log cabin loved by two women is burning down to the green ground. An accident. They'd only meant to remove a few pieces of museum-quality Mission Oak that, technically, no longer belonged to them and drive it quietly home. But things soon got out of hand. That exploding propane tank was definitely not part of their tipsy escapade. Blame those faretheewell cigarettes in the kitchen with its sloping ceiling for setting the whole shebang off . And too bad for the couple who closed on the cabin just last week. They planned on adding indoor plumbing asap. Guess that's off the docket as of now. The new Mrs. Whomever was so afraid of spiders in the outhouse and just had to have a soapstone tub while they were at it. The Finnish sauna in the pines wasn't good enough for her. Ditto the icy little lake that everyone jumped into - shrieking. Such a beautiful shock after that pulsating heat. Such a clarifying bolt after that drowsysweet cedar room. Oh, to be on your back and treading water with a face full of skittering starlight. What's the use? She was just another silly city gal, according to these two; forced to sell the place to pay for a risky chemo course for the older one. The mother. Lake shore property was worth a stupid fortune and they suddenly needed boatloads, no, barges of cash.

Up here on this pine deckled ridge the fire below is an orange fright wig riding stylishly high on a flat black marsh. The two women are sure to catch grief for this thievery gone wrong wrong wrong but in the meantime the daughter is peaking on a one-two punch of cortisol and adrenalin. The stench of cold smoke surrounds her like a dirty blanket. She's just about to start talking non-stop to someone who happened to catch her in his wide open arms as she flew up and away from that burning cabin with the greatest of ease.

As she twists out of these arms and falls to the ground, terrified, he says Oh My. Why - what a toothsome morsel have I ! Shall I grant your heart's desire? Nature will comply with thee if you cooperate with me and tell one tale worth telling this short summer night . Slender and pliant as a luscious spring cattail. Who could blame me?

So it seems this someone was prepared to grant her a powerful wish if she would but do his bidding this very night. Pretty convenient considering the mess she'd just left behind.

Wanting to reinforce any positive social feelings he may already be having she begins in a submissive voice Where's my poor mother? Is she still even out there? We were in the kitchen having a smoke, a few scratched fingers of scotch and then - this blinding explosion. This burning halo of light - her hand so tight in mine - then her hand was. Gone. I lost my grip and it was just Gertrude Stein's "I am not I any longer when I see" followed by a double front somersault with a 1/2 twist that led here. To you.

She looks up at him. Closely. My god but you're such a hairy thing. You look so wild and sure of yourself. You do. I suppose we can get used to anything . It's in our nature to adapt but would you prefer fact or fiction? Rock-a-bye-baby or something a bit blue? Not fast on my feet when I'm all tensed up like this. That was some crazy sky ride through all those trashed satellites. Lucky for me you'd bedded down for the night.

-My feeling exactly. What a piece to have and to hold all winter. I can't. I musn't. I won't.

There's no real beginning. Can I start anywhere? Okay. Well, once upon a time I used to break into that cabin burning down there. One winter I drove up pretty often with a guy who had a mouth I just had to press parts of my body against. His old, burping V-8 always barrelled along nicely at 95 and there we'd be - drinking beer for breakfast. Eating smoked trout like harbor seals. Humming dumb radio songs. Smooching and steaming up all the windows. Hot and anxious to get back to that cabin. We'd fly over frozen hills and land hard on dry islands of gravel. every time. We never had an accident. Not even a scratch. Or a skid. Not once. Never got a ticket either. There wasn't much more to either of us than two bowls of blue fire and an appetite for all kinds of trouble. I must have been nineteen and to this day Still do tremble once in awhile thinking about his Siberian blue eyes, that mouth of his full of tears as he said " I can't love you any better than this." Again and again. And there I was, bent over a chair, hair swimming across a floor littered with clumps of melting snow , thinking: "Well, who wants more than this anyway?"

-A question well worth asking. Low threshold for stimulation. Smelling it all over her like a load of ripening apples. But her lack of restraint and disregard for social conventions surely indicates a pattern of disinhibition behavior. I can't. I musn't. I won't.

Am I bleeding? Do you smell burnt hair? Are my brows and bangs all gone? that 30 year old Laphroaig must have punched me out really Hard. God, I don't smell like a charred lampchop do I?

My new minted dearheart dropped from the sky - you smell delicious to me. I'm reeling from your aroma. A heady, complex bouquet. Your top notes are alternately green and slightly, delightfully sour or smokey like a fine Lapsang Souchow. My appetite grows burdensome. I'm not sure how to address this dilemma. Shall we try some redirection? Shall we ramble down to the lake and distract ourselves with milky bits and inky chips of bouncing stars? The night is quite ripe. Those nipples are boysenberries. Her trunk's full of honey. I. can. almost. Taste. her.

Hey Bruno, me boyo, I'm not misinterpreting your social cues am I? what if I climb right up your proud broad back and rub those rough little ears while I tell you another bit of story? Should I do that? Would that be alright with you? I'm so Cold and sore-boned and scattered and you're such a source of warmth and comfort right now.

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