This Rainman Out of Snow
 

Not that I know
the rules (although I make
up new ones every
day and pass them out like candy) but

I do know
what it's like when
it's happening like when Geoffrey says
tell me a story and I take

off on this thing about me and him
going to Africa
to search for gold but when we find
the treasure and can buy

everything we ever dreamed about it's
not as good a feeling as (my moral
not his) a big hug when you need one which
is where I intend to end

it but Geoffrey
who has been to this well as often as e.e.
himself insists that it can't
be over with until we've put together

a picture book to record our adventure so he gets
out his water-
colors and does up six wet pages
and has them stapled somewhat together

before his mother
arrives to take him home and when
she glances
through them (sideways the way mothers in

a hurry will invariably do)
and mentions it doesn't have a title
                                    Geoffrey honey
a book always has to have a title
he nods gravely

gets out a fresh sheet of  paper for a cover
page and fingerpaints the thing in gold letters:
a title to catch
the sun and hold it like a Van Gogh

something as fine as Mustang Sally or Yankee
Doodle or Me and Maude
I mean a name like this exactly:  PapAW andD ME
go sUrCh fOr goD
 

Copyright 2000  James Lineberger

 
 

Back                                                              Table of Contents                                                         Next