Page 22 - Contrast1979v22n2

child in the chair by the stove. He hurried to add wood and coal to the few live embers he found in the stove.
The kitchen came to life with heat and a hint of woodsmoke. He warmed water in an old kettle and filled the
basin to bathe the child. As he washed away the coal dust and tear-streaks, his chest felt as if on fire. He
emptied the basin over the porch rail. The water thumped onto the back of the blind dog lying the the rain
below. The dog didn't move. Harte came in, slamming the heavy wooden door behind him. He bolted it, then
picking up the girl-child and holding her in his arms, sat again in the rocker by the stove, and both slept.

KeithJ. Slifer

Sunday Dinner grandmother, skin as transparent
as the belique cup
grandpa carves the ham which she sets precariously
with a slightly tarnished sterling knife on its neatly mended saucer,
(his mother's buttercup pattern, of course) . is somewhere beyond the pretense
and expresses vehement views and speaks occasionally
on the coming election to her long-dead sister
as if he could still vote as if she were present at the table.
and had never embezzeled no one tells her otherwise.
one hundred thousand dollars, approximately,
from family and friends i watch,carefully blotting my lips
or spent three years on a frayed irish linen napkin.
in the federal prison at lewisburg. a quiet sunday dinner is, perhaps
not the place for truth.
mother smiles most sincerely, besides, i have secrets of my own.
passing the cracked blue-willow platter
to father, who nods in return 20 Ann Hackman
making no mention of
his tuesday morning appointment
with the divorce lawyer;
which is fair, since she
never mentions her lover at all.

brother john pours iced spring-water
into a chipped waterford goblet
and talks endlessly
about his cross-country trip,
neglecting, as always, to note
the sex of his "traveling buddy",
or the fact that, from missouri on,
she opened her sleeping bag to him
on a regular basis.