by Sarah Beasley Monzón and Jen Blesso
Editor’s Note: This pair of work is part of Follow Your Art Community Studios’ 6th annual Art of Words exhibit.
Come to Me
Mrs. Warloe has a Siamese cat. When Mummy and I go across the street to visit with her, I try to make him sit in my lap but he runs away. Mummy says, “Just sit as quietly as you possibly can. Wait. Be patient and he’ll come to you.” I sit crisscross on the living room rug and try to be a “patient” but waiting is really hard. Mrs. Warloe’s husband is gone like Daddy, in the war, which sounds like her name, so Mummy calls her Connie instead. They like to drink coffee and talk in the kitchen, about books and being “onnalert” and another tour of duty and the cat is looking at me now from the back of the sofa with his big blue eyes. Does he want to come over here? I want to grab him but instead I turn my face and don’t look. I don’t even breathe. I think of Daddy hugging me, us, so strong we can’t breathe for a second…then our lungs come unstuck, breathing in the old spice aqua velva sawdust engine scent of him. They’re still talking in the kitchen but I am a patient, like way back when it was just Mummy and me and it was dark and warm and she was so sad…then I was small and lying in her lap and looking for her blue eyes but they couldn’t quite find me, like a part of me was missing so she couldn’t see me. I try to be so quiet and still and not complain…the cat is rubbing his back on the coffee table legs now, ignoring me but I can hear him purring. Connie is talking about writing a story and I think about the little school desk Daddy made me where I sit and try really hard to make letters. Mine are only scribbles but I keep trying because Mummy is so proud when I can read the words in books. The cat’s fur is so close now but I don’t move. I don’t ask anything.
(Prompt) by Sarah Beasley Monzón
Magritte’s Moon Mom’s Swings
Margaret came blowing out the back door like someone had unkinked a hose. She found me hugging my knees on the dew-dark grass and threw herself down beside me.
“Mom’s gone!” she heaved.
“I know,” I sniffled. We had already said our goodbyes when Margaret, hot off the flight that had brought her back in a hurry from Spain, had blown in the door. Unlike our older sister, Annabel, who seemed never to be entirely present, most conspicuously now at the moment of our mother’s death, Margaret always came and went with all the subtlety of a September thunderstorm.
September 16th, to be exact, was the day we were to remember our mother’s departure. Today’s thunderstorm had given way to a limpidly cool evening that smelled of clematis blossoms and trees contemplating their estate plans.
“Do you think she chose today because of that print she loved in the foyer? Isn’t it titled 16th September?” I asked Margaret, shivering a little, as we watched the moon rise over the old sugar maple until it was perfectly centered, like the star on a Christmas tree. Our beloved old tire swings dangled like earrings on a giant, tousled, three-eared head; they caught the moonlight and gleamed.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Margaret sighed, shifting her sweater under her. Both of our butts were soaked through our jeans and starting to get that grassy itch. “I always wondered why Magritte painted the moon in front of the tree. Like, over it, not above it. It kind of pissed me off, to be honest, but I did think it was cool that it looked just like our tree.”
I remembered something. “I asked her about it once. She said the surrealists painted in a time when the world was trying to decide whether to believe an enormous lie. She put it there so we’d see it as we came and went.”
“Again, why?” Margaret shrugged.
“I guess…” I said, hugging her shoulders, “to remind us that we know where the moon lives.”
(Response) by Sarah Beasley Monzón
Sarah Beasley Monzón is finally getting serious (or, perhaps, less serious) about writing after spending twenty-five years as a home improvement TV producer and director (Bob Vila’s Home Again, The Victory Garden, This New House, This Old House), four very expensive years as a real estate agent during the worst market in recent memory, and a few more years yukking it up managing the Trader Joe’s in Saugus. The wealth of jaw-dropping human antics she’s witnessed during her careers finally having reached critical mass, she’s now ready to write some of it down. She’s written some flash non-fiction and is currently working on a memoir-novel-epistolary thingie. Sarah has a BA in Spanish from Dartmouth College and lives in Melrose with her musician husband, their three (mostly) grown boys and a very chill bearded dragon known as The Dude.
Jennifer Blesso is a mixed media artist. She works primarily in acrylics, layering and working up colors with a variety of mark making tools and collage material. Using symbols such as ladders, soup bowls, or wings, Jennifer explores personal themes such as escape, female empowerment, and the absurd. She exhibits her work locally. Her influences are kitsch, abstract expressionism, street art, and the alphabet. Jennifer received her B.A. in Art History from Smith College. She is the curator and owner of the Free Little Art Gallery Melrose where anyone can share art, take art, or see art. You can see more of her work @jenniferblesso.