Page 23
By Jack Joseph Smith
1.
When Clifton Doolin walked down the steep stone stairs
with our lady of Fatama he was all gaze across the cobble
rectangular street eyes settling on that other courtyard.
He could hear SWISH. That's all. SWISH... The lady was
lanky and forehead bound. Olive smooth. With her a frown
wasn't a prison. But they were locked up across the fence.
No guilt here. No vision. Just identity. For Clifton for
now was just a child. SWISH... Singing. Tumbling the round
globe. The ball sank. Waited in its strings. Then fell.
But then not to touch its other spinning earth. But to
be grabbed. Swiftly. With no recognition. Only given to
belonging.
The doors slamed shut. Clifton looked over his shoulder.
But his glance was to late. The wire screen and the one
way glass that favors the outside was all that was
in his face. Clifton could recall the Montasouri nun.
For he somehow still he felt her behavor. Not stilted.
Just very tall. Reaching. Like a spring deep when watch-
ing a big black bird flap. Off in the dream. There was a
poem there. The cells that continue.
Here at fourteen was a Jesuit athlete.
The magic show was the best now called Sweetwater had
ever seen. The curtain will surely come back. Vamped.
No. That thick blood red; gone. Lived up. Laughing tooth
in hand.