A Handle

Eric and Tony play knives by rivers under bridges.

High above, a bridge spans across the river valley-- treetops barely reach halfway along the towering concrete supports.
 A cold river cuts the middle.  Shoes and socks piled at the banks, jeans rolled to their knees--
Eric takes Tony by the hand and they wade to the river's center.

Tony shivers from the cold, slowly he turns his palms to Eric-- who takes the kitchen knife from his pocket, runs it deep, across middle. Blood spreads through the creases of his hand like a red city map.

Eric and Tony hold their breath, as the blood drips and falls. Blood dips thick heavy drops into the river. Where it touches, the water boils.

Thick smoke grows from the bubbling river and rises to the boys' faces. Black fog fills their eyes, ears and nostrils. Eric and Tony cry, tears ragged as can lids.

One, then the other, the boys plunge their heads into the roiling river waters. As their faces touch water, cords of smoke solidify in their throats, beneath their eyelids and down their ear canals, curling as roots burrowing through hillsides.


Then vision:
 A spanning tree reaches above, its branches thick with leaf-veins' skeleton frames. In the tree's shade, an elderly mother crouches-- her hand gnarled around as a hook, gouges at her crotch, teeth set clenched as though masturbating. An old father, kneels over a puddle-- tearing flesh from his torso and legs, shaping them carefully, and adds the bloody clay to a half finished mask of his childhood face.


There is a sound, like the unhinging of jaws. A strained rumble, like the swallowing of stones.


The tightness passes and the dark lifts-- the boys, Eric and Tony, drift down stream.