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CHICKEN by Anne Colwell It is never girls. You never read, "Three girls were killed today by a high speed train when they jumped the fence . . ." Why? Too practical? They have in them already, from race memory, maybe, knowledge of what will kill their children and their children's children by killing them. Sharks, snakes, bridges to be jumped from at night or anything that looks like this they scorn, refuse. But there is something in boys not about the future, romantic, in love with what wants them now. They scrambled up the fence, down the embankment to the tracks. December, the weeds are brown, and waiting, one shoves red hands into his jacket. You know all the rest, discussion and dares, quick draws on forbidden cigarettes, sneers. But skip ahead. Try to imagine just the moment when, poised, moving forward, you are drawn back into what will destroy you. But both destroy - forward slowly, backward fast - and how do you know which one to choose, when one wants you suddenly so much, so much in that instant, and the other seems every second willing to let go? How do they choose between love and love? And do they accept at the last and relax into a sudden freedom from sinew and muscle and bone, an explosion of self into air, sound, speed. And if there is pain, does it open into a rose of light, or, finally exhausted, reach the other side of itself, like a train rushing into a station where all the boys disembark, slowly, and stand for a moment looking around at the strange platform and their own unimaginable selves. © Anne Colwell « Home | Contributor Notes » |
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