File #1002: "Mosaic_Spring2008_22.jpg"
Description
Ah, and tonight I shall sanctify much, and many times. Hers is young flesh to warm the gray skin of my old age. Yes, I do believe her youth will do me a world of good. And, to pluck the bud as it first blooms is so divine. God be praised.
"So it's a deal."
"Deal."
Those four letters - one word - sealed a young girl's fate. Gone will be the youthful innocence that drew the monster. No more will she lie in the warm spring sun and dream of the flighty things dreamt by only a young girl's mind. Spring's white bud is to be plucked, left to wither, dark and red, in the harsh shadow of winter's past.
"Mommy, I don't want to go," Virginia whispers quietly into the refection formed by her mother staring into the same glass.
I know, Honey, but it won't be so bad. Insincerity born of necessity now became a knot holding the tears quelled. How can I leave her to the lecher outside? Of course the system is just? God's word is spoken truly at church? Oh that I had the strength just to leave. I could take my child and go. Let her grow up and fall in love like some do in Dickson. I have no money, though. We would starve within weeks with no help.
The dark cold night carries off the young girl. In a pink dress, which she played in last week, she now sits on the smooth black seats in Fogard's Cadillac nervously clutching her thin legs together. As the car turns to leave, daughter looks at mother - reflections merged – the past is now present reborn.
Alone, Diana stands under the sliver of her moon watching the fiery taillights recede into blackness. "I have failed," she screams in a whisper that hardly leaves her throat.
From inside the house, "C'mon to bed, Diana, get out of the cold.”
I have failed her. How can I lie down and rest while my frail little cosset is...? How can I eat or sleep or even breathe while my little girl is being ripped from the vine of innocence only to become one more sagging bloom on the stem of polygamy?
Note Fogard is pronounced (faux guard)
Cleland, John. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. 1749. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1999. The allusion here is to the old monster that is first tasked with deflowering Fanny.
Untitled
Rachel Sloan
In streams and beams, the sun shown down through the nearly impermeable canopy of trees that gently about the tiny two-bedroom farmhouse. With its crumbling concrete porch and peeling paint, many generations lived, loved, and died within the proverbial Cracker Jack box farmhouse. The besmirched maroon roof and shutters offset the bone colored paint to give the impres- sion of a living skeleton. Overgrown unattended grass, irises, and buttercups lined the graveled half-circle driveway. In the midst of this tamed yet defiant wilderness, a young girl was picking flowers with a tenderness and affection that only a child could embody.
The patches of sunlight kissed her golden hair with a seeming affection. With a look of consternation characteristic of someone much older, she used her dark blue eyes to appraise each flower before plucking it from its sisters. Already holding a bundle, she found one more that met her immeasurable standards before being called out of her trance.
A woman's voice came from the house, "Isabel! Come here and see what we have for you!"
Barefoot, she ran inside to her mother, a beautiful brunette with just the right amount of curves to be called matronly. With a grand smile, Isabel exclaimed, "Flowers Momma! I picked them just for you!"
With a sneeze, Momma accepted the flowers and put them on the other side of the room and with an air of lamentation, "Thank you, honey."
"What's wrong, Momma? Don't cha like them." "They're pretty, but they hurt Momma's allergies. "Oh, okay," said Isabel abashedly.
Momma looked at her with love. "Well, go and see what Daddy has for you go on out back."
Isabel ran though the house, feet pattering on the wooden floor past the wood burning stove, through the kitchen, and
"So it's a deal."
"Deal."
Those four letters - one word - sealed a young girl's fate. Gone will be the youthful innocence that drew the monster. No more will she lie in the warm spring sun and dream of the flighty things dreamt by only a young girl's mind. Spring's white bud is to be plucked, left to wither, dark and red, in the harsh shadow of winter's past.
"Mommy, I don't want to go," Virginia whispers quietly into the refection formed by her mother staring into the same glass.
I know, Honey, but it won't be so bad. Insincerity born of necessity now became a knot holding the tears quelled. How can I leave her to the lecher outside? Of course the system is just? God's word is spoken truly at church? Oh that I had the strength just to leave. I could take my child and go. Let her grow up and fall in love like some do in Dickson. I have no money, though. We would starve within weeks with no help.
The dark cold night carries off the young girl. In a pink dress, which she played in last week, she now sits on the smooth black seats in Fogard's Cadillac nervously clutching her thin legs together. As the car turns to leave, daughter looks at mother - reflections merged – the past is now present reborn.
Alone, Diana stands under the sliver of her moon watching the fiery taillights recede into blackness. "I have failed," she screams in a whisper that hardly leaves her throat.
From inside the house, "C'mon to bed, Diana, get out of the cold.”
I have failed her. How can I lie down and rest while my frail little cosset is...? How can I eat or sleep or even breathe while my little girl is being ripped from the vine of innocence only to become one more sagging bloom on the stem of polygamy?
Note Fogard is pronounced (faux guard)
Cleland, John. Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. 1749. Oxford: Oxford Uni- versity Press, 1999. The allusion here is to the old monster that is first tasked with deflowering Fanny.
Untitled
Rachel Sloan
In streams and beams, the sun shown down through the nearly impermeable canopy of trees that gently about the tiny two-bedroom farmhouse. With its crumbling concrete porch and peeling paint, many generations lived, loved, and died within the proverbial Cracker Jack box farmhouse. The besmirched maroon roof and shutters offset the bone colored paint to give the impres- sion of a living skeleton. Overgrown unattended grass, irises, and buttercups lined the graveled half-circle driveway. In the midst of this tamed yet defiant wilderness, a young girl was picking flowers with a tenderness and affection that only a child could embody.
The patches of sunlight kissed her golden hair with a seeming affection. With a look of consternation characteristic of someone much older, she used her dark blue eyes to appraise each flower before plucking it from its sisters. Already holding a bundle, she found one more that met her immeasurable standards before being called out of her trance.
A woman's voice came from the house, "Isabel! Come here and see what we have for you!"
Barefoot, she ran inside to her mother, a beautiful brunette with just the right amount of curves to be called matronly. With a grand smile, Isabel exclaimed, "Flowers Momma! I picked them just for you!"
With a sneeze, Momma accepted the flowers and put them on the other side of the room and with an air of lamentation, "Thank you, honey."
"What's wrong, Momma? Don't cha like them." "They're pretty, but they hurt Momma's allergies. "Oh, okay," said Isabel abashedly.
Momma looked at her with love. "Well, go and see what Daddy has for you go on out back."
Isabel ran though the house, feet pattering on the wooden floor past the wood burning stove, through the kitchen, and