Witness

– Mary Lou Buschi –

It was all over the lawn, flickering rhinestones, silver tea sets, mother’s blue chair—a lake of life’s
items set afloat on a lawn far way from where she had never been.  A nickel, a quarter, anyone
willing to cart the washer away, or the Delft blue dishes that looked deeper in the shade.  If I could
have cut a hole in that universe, I would have sent that sale back, or forward, or wherever she’d 
gone… but to stand in the midst of it saying yes, no, yes, you can nickel and dime me out of my
original thoughts. While somewhere, my mother searches for her cut glass vase, or the stolen
outlook of doves, when three of them come over the hill like angels, as we collected the wreckage
from the sale, looking for luggage. Maybe they were traveling to or from, no one asked, no one
cared, but they didn’t want to pay more than a dollar for the suitcase.  I said fine because I wanted
out of this abandoned lake, it was late, and she, the one willing to negotiate, had gnats stuck in her
hair, nestled into the fine stands; spray so thick their wing spans visible to even me who was trying
not to register any of it.  Please take the bag and go.  But she was a Witness wanting to share.  We
shooed her off, she and her two friends, but she returned early, silhouette against the sun, held aloft
by the wings caught in her hair.