Polestars of a Private Sky

Polestars of a Private Sky

April 9, 1976

I was three years old. It was April, so I had just turned three a couple of months ago. I can almost remember the smell of the not-yet-spring air, the cracking of the ice, the dripping of icicles. I had little red rubber boots that spring; I can still see the pattern of the tread. My red boots made little zigzag footprints in the mud. Was that the year my dad took me to look for polliwogs in the spring runoff? I think it was, or at least I was wearing the same red boots. That year we had a winter picnic in April. I remember the fire against the snow. I remember holding my hands in the pockets of a fuzzy coat. I remember the color of light as the sun went down. I was too young to believe in summer; I thought the winter might last forever.

(He stood alone in despair in his sister’s apartment. He was too old to believe in summer anymore; all was over, his voice scarred. He could see the color of light in the sky. Never had it been more pale and cold. All was over: he found the belt, pulled the chair into the bathroom.)


May 19, 1987

I was fourteen then, all awkward pimply adolescence and pining for beautiful boys who looked past me. May: I can recall the exact slant of light as it fell onto the high school I’d go to next year. I was wearing earphones and listening to the Beatles, always doing the uncool thing while the tall blond girls laughed at me. May, the trilliums were blooming, the forest was carpeted in white. My fervent teenage imagination drew houses in my head where I would live with this month’s crush, once he noticed me; I wanted to live bigger-than-life: burning with desire, I read Coleridge at midnight and sighed until dawn.

(She spoke quietly with the love of her life, in the beautiful house they’d shared, this dearest place with its koi ponds and its little stream. She had lived so brightly, and he had loved so fully, and now they were tired. She could see the exact slant of the light as it played along the long polished barrel.)

February 20, 2005

I was the age I am now, living where I do now. I was sitting at my computer with my bird on my wrist, as I am now. The light was just like this; I could hear all the same sounds.

(He finished his note, laughed, and squeezed the trigger.)

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