“For Elaine, Who Once Crocheted A Bookmark For Me That Just Said ‘F**K'” by Sarah Reddick
For Elaine,
Who Once Crocheted A Bookmark For Me That Just Said “F**K”
by Sarah Reddick – from The Local Voice #148
Clink of ice cubes colliding
with frosted glasses.
Notes of some old song I knew intimately
but couldn’t place.
Grass, mid-summer green, bent
over with the weight of droplets
spraying from a hidden sprinkler.
She splashed me when she hit the cool
aqua of the pool, her bulky body
graceful somehow.
She could float on her back for hours,
she could even sleep that way,
arms and legs spread,
a starfish in a black tank suit.
Her phone rang, vibrating
the glass topped table.
She answered it dripping wet,
in the middle
of a story she was telling me.
She spoke briefly before hanging up.
She said, I haven’t talked to
her in twenty years,
but I have company. I’ll call her back.
She winked at me and laughed,
a deep laugh,
a smoker’s laugh.
She died suddenly a few months later.
I smashed things while sobbing, an act
of grieving that she would
have scoffed at.
She hated dramatics.
But I have this day frozen, crystalline,
and I still wonder if she ever called
her long lost friend.
About the Author
Newt Rayburn Newt Rayburn founded THE LOCAL VOICE in March of 2006. Previously, Newt was Editor of PROFANE EXISTENCE in Minneapolis, and Art Director for Ole Miss' LIVING BLUES magazine. Newt won a National Magazine Award in 1999 for his SOUTHERN MUSIC ISSUE with THE OXFORD AMERICAN. A seventh-generation Lafayette County, Mississippian, Newt Rayburn's alter ego—Neuter Cooter—lead the Mississippi band THE COOTERS to Rocknoll Glory across the USA from 1993-2018. Newt is a family man who also is a publisher, photographer, writer, musician, landlord, and Civil War enthusiast.
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