Into the Folds

A yellow bird has come to the window, wings hard at work but it doesn’t hum. Hovers over the bramble, rests on a thornless branch. It is June in Texarkana— heat ripples from the pavement, from the chrome on Aunt’s T-bird. This bird is red, not yellow, and Mother Mary swings from the rear-view mirror. Patron saint of sharp curves coming out of nowhere. Blue robes hide many sins. Aunt with the waist-length hair unpins her graying locks at night, sits at the vanity. With a silver brush she ministers— a hundred strokes, one for each mistake she’s made. Penance should serve a purpose, she tells me, and tucks a thousand or so additional blunders and misdeeds into the folds of her faded blue nightgown. She crawls into bed, sleeps deep under the weight of her transgressions. In the pale morning light, it is not Aunt, but Mary of the T-bird who unties herself, weary of the dangle and sway. The car’s crank windows are a challenge, but Mary is a woman who knows her strength. She whistles for the yellow bird, climbs on its back, and they fly.