Top of the Stairs Looking Down
by Alexa Gutter
You were ten, bundled for Finnish winter,
standing at the brink of cement steps, when Mirja, neighbor-girl, school-friend, stretched her woolen hands in front of her and shoved. How many stairs? In your story, the drop seemed endless, the concrete icy and unforgiving. I could see it clearly—little girl you crumpled in a heap of boots and knitted clothes, your white mitten soaked with blood as you touched the place where your cheek had broken open. And Mirja! Mirja at the top of the stairs, her rosy face glowing with pleasure, unaffected by the red splashed snow. I learned all this when I asked about the pale scar just above your cheekbone, near the outer corner of your left eye, a place where tears collect and spill over. At five, the injustice of it rattled me, filled me with outrage each time I looked at the spidery mark. In Helsinki that summer, we sat with Mirja and her daughters in an outdoor cafe´. I stared at you in awe, watched your smiling as though the whole betrayal had never occurred. Later, you laughed when I demanded an explanation, assured me that people move on from these things, forget them. I would never have guessed that villains grow up, have daughters, eat cups of vanilla ice cream. How strange to discover you were once a small girl, and to find out some years later that you would not live forever, that I might touch your swollen face and you wouldn't feel it, wouldn't open your eyes. |
Alexa Gutter is a former high school English teacher, and was the Bucks County Poet Laureate in 2013. Most recently, her poem "April" was published in the River Heron Review. She currently lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania with her husband and young son.
A 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, Gutter's poem can be found in Issue 18 of Glassworks.
A 2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, Gutter's poem can be found in Issue 18 of Glassworks.