the traffic lights turn red, all the way down Park Avenue. snowflakes are falling and taxi's pile up. Black rubber boots step onto the thick wet snow, walk from the sidewalk to curb and a cab door swings open. Across the street is the Armory with its massive brick face of history taking up the entire block. The bus stop billboards flash slick photos of young men and women with their backs curved and bare. I step onto the slushy street and into her apartment building. Elaine lies in bed. She is sleeping and her mouth is shaped into a perfect O. A quiet hum rises from the small machine blowing cool mist in her direction. Standing in the doorway, I wait as I watch the silver mist travel serpentine then disappears, sucked into the warm dry air. she is resting lightly in her sheets and outside the day floats in a haze of whiteness. All day family and friends slip in and out. Heavy glass doors lead into a lobby of mirror and marble greeted by welcoming doormen who move swiftly--the elevator, gold buttons, the soft pink hallway, apartment 3G with the door ajar. Visitors walk in to the entryway, then more slowly into the bedroom. There is a hospital bed and chairs around it. On the side table sits a small paper cup with a long straw tipped and balanced. From her bedroom window you can see the Armory. She struggles to take a sip of the warm white liquid, “ I feel like a pancake,” she whispers to me. Her body is dead weight. Her feet are swollen and her skin is so thin with multiple shades of purple underneath. You cannot touch her with too much pressure or the skin will tear and her bruises will bleed through. I look out the window and notice that the snow has stopped and I think how lucky she is to have this view of the Armory. “Do you want the painting? Take the painting,” she tells me. Her finger points to the wall, to one of her older paintings. I see the rabbi’s back and he is standing in front of a thick stained glass window. He holds a prayer book. It is realistic and somber and not like her later abstracts that layer the canvas intricately with easy blotches of color. she searches the room while somewhere a train is rocking and eyes are opening from a sleep. It is late afternoon now and her bedroom has become more lively with visitors. They all marvel at the view and how smooth her face looks as it rests on the pillow. Her thin white hair is combed back like a straw halo. “Photos ? Tomorrow. No now.” We put a little lipstick on her, the color she remembered and it is the high point of her day. We all gather around her, smiling. The look in her eyes does not change, but her lips close, present and red. Denise Mostacci Sklar has had a career as a dancer and now has had the good fortune to discover writing as another way to move through life. She also has the good fortune to study with poet/teacher Marc Olmsted. She has been published in numerous journals including the Aurorean, On the Rusk, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Literary Review, Gravel, Similar Peaks, Damfino, and Poesy. Denise is from Hamilton, Massachusetts where she lives with her husband and two incredible sons.
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It was bare-foot perfection and sweet, salty, crunchy laughter. It was dusty road-side stands and juicy, strawberry days. It evoked perpetual summer. Then it became an island of exclusivity and long-sold hippy dreams. It was Martha's Vineyard. Things always happen in between. The first time we were there, I knew I would marry him. The second time we were there, the weather held a knife-edge of change. The Atlantic brought heavy fog and then whipped it away. We were there for another wedding. Guests spilled onto the street. Men hugged and patted each other on the back. They lit cigars. Women in heels tottered and kissed, kissed the air. So good to see you. How are the kids? How is the job? Lovely, just lovely. Pat, pat, kiss kiss. Voices cascaded, one after another like waves on the surrounding shore. David leaned against a rusty street sign, the red octagon—stop—a warning neither of us would heed. I will call him David, because the name means beloved. David, in history, was a king, a poet, a warrior. David, in this story, has a peace symbol tattooed on his shoulder. David was not the man I had married. He smiled at me, took my hand; I kissed his cheek. The voices went on around us, and we looked at each other through damp, cold fog. The crowd started to move from the street towards the beach. Side by side, we passed a low, white picket fence, along a bricked path flanked with blue hydrangeas. I did not look for my husband. I nodded at knots of people. I sneezed at the smell of perfume. I preferred the scent of bodies, the scent of sweat, the scent of the sea. The crowd moved slowly like a school of dead fish floating in the tide, bumping along in the ocean beyond. In the beginning, my husband and I had rented a shack near the beach. The shack had become real estate with an ocean view. We had become people at a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard. David sighed, his shoulder brushed against mine. His head dipped towards mine. Already I was aware of the proximity between our shoulders, between our mouths, between our hands. My feet sank into the beach. I bent down and removed my own heels. Cold sand seeped into my stockings. I shivered, my thin blue silk inadequate. David removed his jacket and placed it around me. Warmth built. Waves foamed. People turned towards the path. A young girl, golden ringlets blowing, scattered rose petals from a wicker basket. The bride followed her, barefoot, shivering, her dress billowed white behind her. She approached her groom. They stood side by side. They mouthed words I could not hear. I could hear the pounding of the surf on the shore, the pounding of my pulse. I could hear the sound of before. I could almost hear the sound of after. In between, there was a marriage.
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