Rhinoceros
for my niece, Cara
Yesterday,
trimming a rose stem
at the kitchen sink,
my thumb remembered
something from long ago
so I laid down the snippers,
pressed hard on the side
of the largest thorn
till it snapped off.
I licked its flat side, stuck it
carefully to my forehead.
Turning to my daughter,
I pronounced myself
a rhinoceros, was rewarded
by a roll of her eyes.
I tell you this, Cara, because
it was with your mother
that I played this game
in our front yard
more than forty years ago,
and – she went so fast –
I don’t know if she
thought to tell you
this, or all of the other
essential stories
a mother
passes on
to her daughter.
Katy McKinney
for my niece, Cara
Yesterday,
trimming a rose stem
at the kitchen sink,
my thumb remembered
something from long ago
so I laid down the snippers,
pressed hard on the side
of the largest thorn
till it snapped off.
I licked its flat side, stuck it
carefully to my forehead.
Turning to my daughter,
I pronounced myself
a rhinoceros, was rewarded
by a roll of her eyes.
I tell you this, Cara, because
it was with your mother
that I played this game
in our front yard
more than forty years ago,
and – she went so fast –
I don’t know if she
thought to tell you
this, or all of the other
essential stories
a mother
passes on
to her daughter.
Katy McKinney
Subarus at the Watering Hole
In late November they begin to emerge, once the fall rains
have beaten the leaves from the branches of the vine maple
and the valley fills with slash fire smoke.
Thin winter light slants through newly-cleared forest
as little by little the Subarus we’ve dragged off
into the woods begin to appear. Twenty years of Subarus.
The white one with three wheels, blue tarp draped over
its broken back window, the black one with the sprung door
and heater full of mouse shit, the red one with the seized engine.
Our son owns that one now – has since the day he floored it
and drove full-speed through that final waist-deep mudhole.
There used to be more – two Subarus and an International Scout
but they got traded one summer for a vacuum cleaner
when my husband was away. These are “parts cars,” supposedly,
but ever since we bought the Honda their usefulness has dimmed.
They sit now, back in the woods, covered with fir needles,
listing behind the two plows that still get driven each winter.
One has a chunk ripped from its fender. “Some body damage.”
They surround the burn pile I’m tending this evening
and appear to inch closer when my back is turned,
skittish hyenas come for a drink at a Serengeti watering hole.
I rake the embers. Firelight scatters off cracked, patched headlights.
What do they ponder, these lost Subarus? Internal combustion? Immolation?
The gravel roads of their youth? Or have they gathered closer to swap stories –
like about that time the snow fell higher than the roofs, that time
the plowed berms made a bobsled tunnel the entire length of the road?
That time that no one was going anywhere without 4-wheel drive.
Katy McKinney
In late November they begin to emerge, once the fall rains
have beaten the leaves from the branches of the vine maple
and the valley fills with slash fire smoke.
Thin winter light slants through newly-cleared forest
as little by little the Subarus we’ve dragged off
into the woods begin to appear. Twenty years of Subarus.
The white one with three wheels, blue tarp draped over
its broken back window, the black one with the sprung door
and heater full of mouse shit, the red one with the seized engine.
Our son owns that one now – has since the day he floored it
and drove full-speed through that final waist-deep mudhole.
There used to be more – two Subarus and an International Scout
but they got traded one summer for a vacuum cleaner
when my husband was away. These are “parts cars,” supposedly,
but ever since we bought the Honda their usefulness has dimmed.
They sit now, back in the woods, covered with fir needles,
listing behind the two plows that still get driven each winter.
One has a chunk ripped from its fender. “Some body damage.”
They surround the burn pile I’m tending this evening
and appear to inch closer when my back is turned,
skittish hyenas come for a drink at a Serengeti watering hole.
I rake the embers. Firelight scatters off cracked, patched headlights.
What do they ponder, these lost Subarus? Internal combustion? Immolation?
The gravel roads of their youth? Or have they gathered closer to swap stories –
like about that time the snow fell higher than the roofs, that time
the plowed berms made a bobsled tunnel the entire length of the road?
That time that no one was going anywhere without 4-wheel drive.
Katy McKinney