Agoloso Presents - Atondido Stories Agoloso Presents - Mama Mada | Page 219

Mama Mada
it’s gulped a deep draught of space; either way the heavens
shift – admittedly no longer reflected
through our redundant Leviathan’s speculum metal eye –
the sky adheres to its constantly changing order
and that faraway look we feel we inherit or are given to
holds us fervent, tranquil while the weight
of the world and its troubles in our watching seems to lift.
Dinner Party
by Natalya And erso n
Father Clarke and Father Dempsey are wearing
matching hats. I’m on door duty. I pat Kitters
through a dark gap to the basement so he doesn’t rub
his mouth on people’s legs. He scratches; his paw
shakes the bottom corner of the door until he bursts
through. Reverend Pollock is here – she’s out of breath
because she had to park near the school. ‘Are your wretched
neighbours at it again?’ she wants to know, wiping her giant
chest with a hanky that Father Clarke takes from his shiny
pocket. Father Bidgood arrives laughing: ‘Why doesn’t your
mother let you grow your hair, for God’s sake?’ I have tied
Mom’s peach negligee around my head because it swings
like Jennifer’s yellow ponytail, which I fling with my pencil
during math class. Mom shouts, ‘She’ll get over it,’ from
the kitchen, where Baxter barks for ten minutes straight while
lobsters are in slow motion on the counter. Kitters whips his tail,
bats at the blue-banded claws until he’s elbowed off. Father Godfrey
throws a Triscuit in his mouth, says soon I’ll go cross-eyed, turns
the TV off. ‘Don’t tell your mother,’ he winks, slides a glossy
packet next to my knee. ‘I heard that; we’ll see if she eats her
dinner,’ Mom calls. When we’re done grace, soups, salads,
and I’m scraping shells into the garbage, I get a big laugh
when I say ‘I hate her new album!’ and they say ‘Not that Madonna.’
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