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Brigitte McCray

Mud

Mother’s cuticles were brown,
the mud caked underneath her nails,
both hands tinted yellow.
She scrubbed the oak dresser
in the middle of the yard
of our Roanoke apartment building,
Salvation Army members handed buckets
of fresh water to her and others
who pulled fragmented pieces of furniture
out of the apartments.
I sat on top of our stack of record albums,
watched dad pull up in a blue Camero.
I can still remember the way he stepped
over the soaked spots of the ground,
the way he bent down on the sidewalk
and with the tip of his thumb,
rubbed the brown off his white shoes.
She handed him things she salvaged:
shirt, jeans, a few pictures.
It was the last time their fingers would meet.



Eight Ball

The man who taught Dad how to spot fools
held the cube of chalk between
his thumb and index finger,
showed him how to rub the end,
grind it into the depths of blueness.
He handed him a pool cue,
bent his arm around dad's waist.
"See that white ball," he'd tell Dad,
sipping on a long neck of Bud.
"It’s the ticket to greatness."
The men who sat at the bar
eyed the roll of the balls,
hands held onto their beers and whiskey,
dollar bills used as coasters under their glasses,
cigarette smoke curled around their ears.
Dad’s back arched over felt,
made the strategic curve of his waist,
invisible lines inside his eyes,
pinpointed suckers in the dimly lit room.
When the end of the cue
smacked the white ball,
colors flashed against the green,
numbers fell into place, men were awed.
He stretched his back, leaned onto the stick,
and believed he had become a god.