Caitlin Levy

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Excerpt from Short Story, Moon Cheese

Georgia was really from Virginia. She was eighteen, and kind and flirty and bright. She looked like a Russian nesting doll, with her pale porcelain skin, which was rosy and fresh. She was Irish, and dressed like it was the 60s. She gave people something to fall into; she could make someone feel safe enough to laugh, dance, or crumble like pie. When I had my period, and was dizzy with pain, she brought me chocolates that smelled like cranberries. I had been at the library two years ago, where she worked, when I fell asleep in the YA novel section. She stroked my hair and called me honey pie, and I assumed the worst. I was prepared to tell the pervert that I was a member of the Mob, as Dad had prepared me, but she ended up becoming so much more than a local perv.

“Addie!” She yelled it so loud the few neighbors inside turned to see, and she ran toward me. Her earrings swung back and forth, and I leaped up and hugged her tight. I nestled my ear into her shoulder, as if she was a pillow.
She sipped on a cold lemon ice tea, but flicked the lemon seeds onto the tablecloth. I told her about being alone, really being a teenager.
“Wow, you are one cool cat,” she teased. “ How do you feel?”
I didn’t quite know how to answer the question. I felt alone, and enlivened. I ended up making a low, silly gurgle sound, like a muppet’s phlegm swishing, and shrugged my shoulders. She giggled, and her face seemed to flower.
“I’m thinking . . . ” I stirred the crumbs in my hot chocolate. “Of starting a fan club.”
She leaned forward. “Yes! You totally should. You totally, totally . . . wow.”
“Really? I wanted to use my parent’s shop, and I thought maybe it could be a place to just meet people. Because, you know, none of my friends listen to them. And I’ve never met anyone who loves them as much.” Dad had driven me up to Burlington once to see them in concert. I could hear the shouts and ‘I love your accent!’s but I could only really see the outline of blue eyeshadow, and hands. I didn’t meet anyone, really. “And I would make posters, and make everyone cocoa, and we could make bracelets with their names. And I would play their songs on my iPod, and we could dance!”
“That sounds like your heaven, Addie.” She pressed her curled fingers against her cheeks and leaned in, a plum tree pushing against the wind. Sweet, sweet, sweet.
“ I know!”
“I just.” The branches broke off. “Do you think you’ll be able to find people around here that might join?”
“Yeah, I think I could. I think maybe if I tried.”
My neighbors were sort of physical reactions of each other. When someone planted a blueberry harvest, we held a pie competition. Mary on Barbs Way opened an art exhibition, inspired by Georgia O’Keefe’s flowers, but more erotically tinged, and we went. We all bounce and glide off of one another, and I thought people might do that for me. And, during the war, the Civil one, we had flocked in big numbers against Dixie. We shed nail and kin for a cause we couldn’t touch, but could imagine. Abe had led us because he loved justice so much. I could lead the women and children, too.
“Are you comparing yourself to Long Abe?”
“No, I guess I’m just drawing historical connections.”
Georgia’s lips looked like twine unfurling, and she was still the same comfort, beaming, shining. “You know I would join if I could.” She was visiting from Bethel, where her mom was setting up a new office for her charity. “I have a few cousins who might be interested, and I could ask them. I know people can be resistant, but once they meet you, I’m sure they’ll join.”
We talked about the radio show she wanted to work on and seashell crafts. The sky soon was spotted with old age. As I walked home, the landscape wrapped itself around me, like a quilt. Pale yellows peeked out of the forest, and the violets of the far-off mountain peaks were a mirage in the wind.
When I got home, I was startled by the emptiness of the house. It still smelled of raspberries and cream. I went into my favorite place, the linen closet above the stairs. The towels were plush, and felt like fuzz on petals. I turned on my favorite song by New Dawn: “Lovesick.”
‘I want you here/for little more than simply/I love you/I love you.’

Flowers for Georgia

Self-Care

Jasmine honey comb touch
on our fingers, it is but the lotion,
witch serum, a labor of love-- to feel
soft is a melody.

Pull back dirty blonde strands; it is
a sheaf of the sun caked in gold wire dust,
As an homage to the star of the scalp.

Pulled into wiry rope, hug my ears
with the frizz of a sunflower
plucked by a child’s fingers,
remind me I am to be woven, spun,
for the touch of silk screams also for the living.

Warm water can soothe the dirt;
my retainer has been cracked from
grinding teeth to gum as I looked at
the flushed brail of my skin--
ginger wash, the act of spitting, heal
from wound to wound.

Let the polish pink and warm,
rose as the ear olive shells in cracked
beaches, feel as brush strokes, gasps for life,
too far, we-don’t-care-if-you-like-it art

When I put fruity citric acid in my bathtub,
it is not a cry for help, I cry out to the inside.
Yesterday I stuck my hand into the rain for
a full minute. This is the love we give to ourselves,
as we forget all day long.

Summer

Hot summer oatmeal cake
my skin, cool water as solstice beams
to shake us from the things
that feel empty.

No-kidding-kind-of-heartbreak, and
we close our eyes to forget,
but too warm, as baby flesh
closing in on itself.

Scorching purifies the body and wipes
clean; this is a myth.
Zephyrus the God has not yet brought
early summer breezes- please,
we look to your sky in our kind of prayer.

Lemon trees ripen fast, my brother
tells me, as we grow sour with ache
in long bones, for something
besides fruit.

So young, we are the dips in the
dandelion white peaches; do not
leave us alone (with our thoughts!),
beware, in flashing lights, we will be bruised,
The lights inside, as a pit, it is kept inside.

As warm as nighttime flame,
we grow restless for the
deliverance of things, anything.
I may catch a spark, soon moon my mother.
No, that is not a metaphor.

For The Office

Birds find shelter in the underbellies
of wings and mushrooms bloomed
from the darkest part of land.
I, mossy with prickled memories,
throw sadness to the screen--
a micro-fiber cloth to absorb it all--
trip train tracks to Scranton, Pennsylvania,
there is something hopeful in taking the
ordinary, the work, the car ride and sandwich,
and marriage, and marriage, and marriage,
and peeling the life as lemon skin.
I often do not know if I should laugh or cry,
this is a new level of insanity which we must
aspire to. This is the mother, the friend,
the kisses in lavender dresses, the
churning of the earth as sweet milk.

My moon smells of beet juice
and Battlestar Galactica.