LatinosUSA

The Elbow-Shaped Shard Hid Under the Grassy Tendrils Outside the Thrift Store

She reached down to stroke what had to be a teacup fragment. Perhaps from a donated set, someone had left this behind as trash. Very little was waste to her. That’s why she frequented the charity shops. Why her art was a way of repurposing trash. For her gallery pieces, she added gold lacquer in random patternlessness.

Her yard had been included in this year’s garden tour. On an itinerary of yards sculpted by Mexican landscapers, hers had stood out because hers was natural—the bare desert floor ornamented with prickly pear and cholla, strands of bottlebrush and pampas grass, interspersed with her porcelain mosaic benches, tables, and poles.

This shard looked like antique Delft but was probably Blue Willow. As she drew it out of the ground, what she found underneath caused her to quickly pull in her breath, dropping the shard as if it were poison. An aggregation of pillbugs panicked as their shelter disappeared, turning them into scatterlings. One thing she couldn’t abide was bugs, which was why she preferred plants spaced out and less inviting to animal life.

But something drew her back. The bars on their backs, their tiny fluttering legs. How vulnerable they were. Only one stomp of her boot would kill them all. She held out a finger, and one of them climbed onto it, then rolled into a ball to protect itself from her. She rested the shard back and pushed grassy weeds over it. What a shame, she thought, because the pattern was Flow Blue, rarer than Willow.

~~

Domain

From my vantage on the steppingstones of the grassy hill out back, our bungalow is no bigger than my sheet fort in the living room. Daddy, with a face-wiping bandanna tucked into his back pocket, has worked every weekend on the yard. He dug the pavers into the rocky soil to make it easier to climb the incline. Built my anthill-speckled sandbox with sand stolen from the lake. Cleared out the vegetable plot. Only yelled at me whenever he really started sweating.

I know this backyard better than anyone. The bunny nest behind the burning barrel I accidentally uncovered, the Woolly Bear caterpillars I capture for Show and Tell, the pill bugs that coil at my finger’s touch. My painted turtle, fallen into a window well, its little clawed boots wiggling in the air.

I discover the four-leaf clover no one else sees. My friends cartwheel down the hill and vroom trucks in the sandbox while I am spanked and sent to my room for yelling a word I didn’t know was wrong until I saw my father’s face. I am stuck in my dark bedroom, worrying about my yard out there without me in charge.

One night in the dark, the moon beaming at me, I sneak into the backyard. Now it’s not just about the earthworms and toads hiding in the grass, but another adventure up above where one star shines brighter than the others. I sing Twinkle, Twinkle and know all the words. Then I make a wish.