What I tell him is this—let’s shoot a film / not a serious feature / but a movie you make with your friends / no stunts or dialogue / only us / goofing off / drawing in dirt / painting white circles with mops / clapping / high above our heads / louder / counting the echoes of our hands / like babes who don’t know what city means yet / two young cargo ships honking near an empty lot / because this is the early ’70s and we don’t need permission / to play in abandoned fields / industrial areas reinhabited by birds / pigeons against the wind / honking / geese / honking / cargo / a white bulk carrier / honking for eighteen minutes / he says I need a point of view / typical him /the sibling who grew up first / And I, the rock dove novice to the sky / defecating / on his red and green French noir posters / show me, he says, so I do / outside / near grass / nature as prop / cars honk / red and green and blue sedans / I start by shaking bits of gravel from my shoe / the nearby cars shout / four door vehicles honking, honking, honking / my black canvas sneaker shaking, shaking, shaking / until finally / he shoves sticks in his trousers / even does a little dance / I clap my hands with the traffic / echo!—echo!—echo!—echo!—then ask, how about this?
~
Katiy Heath is an essayist from Saint Joseph, Missouri. Her writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, HAD, LIT, among others, and has been supported by Millay Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), and NES Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she also worked as the Managing Editor of the program’s literary journal, LUMINA. For more, visit her website at keheath.com.
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