Sample Work by Mark Belair

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From “Conjuring”

I imagine
I remember

a beam of light
creeping along a dark wall,

bending through a corner,
rippling over a window curtain.

Then a car hissing
by outside, its headlights

throwing new patterns of light
across the ceiling and walls.

Its rush of sound recedes
and the solitary beam returns.

I dip the flashlight under
my soft, caramel-colored blanket

and press it up to the cloth,
creating a circle of bright light.

Using the light as a style, I write
my full, seven-year-old name

in the blanket, forming each letter
silently with my lips.

Then I underline it, whispering
what I wrote-

Thomas Plante-
as if conjuring myself.

*

I imagine
I remember

easing through the still, watchful kitchen
and into my sister’s dawn-dim bedroom.

She is twelve, plump, and asleep.
I climb into her warm, yielding bed.

She wakes up, puts her thick, pink-framed glasses on,
then gestures, finger to lips, for me to stay quiet.

We crawl under the covers and
sit up, poles of a tent.

“Know what?” she whispers in the hot dark.
“What?”

“I dreamed about old Mrs. Margrove.”
“What about her?”

“Know what she did? Not in my dream, but really?”
“What?”

“She donated her nerves to science.”
“How?”

“I don’t know. They must have operated.”
“Is she still alive?”

“Sure. I guess so. But I don’t think she leaves her apartment anymore."
“I wonder what it’s like.”

“Yeah.”
“I wonder how the blood gets around.”

“I don’t know. Know what my dream was?”
“What?”

“That her cat died.”
“Did it?”

“In my dream, stupid!” she says out loud. “Not really!”
“Oh,” I whisper.

“You want to go visit her?” she asks, whispering again.
A door scrapes open.

“No.”
“Shhh!”

Sleep-heavy footsteps lumber up the hall, then the covers, with a snap,
whip off.

Dark hair sticking out, my father grips my forearm and slaps my wrist.
My sister gets the same.

I hop out of her bed, scamper down the hall to the living room,
jump onto the daybed, and scootch under my blanket.


My father’s footsteps, wantonly creaking the hallway floorboards,
approach.

I hold my breath, my red wrist stinging.
Then a door clicks shut.

*

I imagine
I remember

morning sunlight glinting off my mother’s whisk
as she scrambles eggs by the cast-iron stove,

the youthful flab on her upper arms
swaying with abandon.

A brown-and-yellow flowered apron
cinches her ample waist.

My sister slams the cutlery drawer shut with her hip then,
fist full of knives and forks, slaps

flatware on a black-and-white porcelain-topped table.
She bears an apron matching my mother’s.

On the counter, an amber plastic radio dial, lit with news,
bubbles from its oak case.

“…and how are the five little tykes doing?
Well, according to Dr. Edward Cortland,

presiding obstetrician, they’re hale, healthy,
and crying all at once.”

“Oh my,” my mother says to no one. “What
a racket.”

My sister, frowning at my mother, plunks a fork
down hard.

A wisp of steam, redolent of shaving cream,
wafts into the kitchen.

My sister looks toward the half-open door to the bathroom
where my father, in dark slacks and a strap undershirt,

keeps the hot water running while
shaving with crisp, precise strokes.

She scrunches her nose up
and fans the air.

“And the happy parents? Well, in Mrs. Robertson’s own words,
‘I can’t say we expected it! Especially all boys! But now that

we’re at it, we’re thinking of starting
a baseball team!’”

“Isn’t that cute,” my mother says, dumping the eggs
into a hot skillet where they sizzle

then modulate down
to the muffled key of cooking.

My sister, under her breath, mutters,
“Isn’t that cute,” then spanks

down the last knife
and tramps to a cupboard.

“One thing the Robertsons can expect is help
from their own townsfolk.

Offers from local merchants to donate their products are pouring in.
Nurses estimate that the Robertsons will go through fifteen gallons

of baby formula each week and make over one hundred and fifty
changes of diapers!”

“Just imagine,” my mother says with a sigh. “What a load.”
“Okay!” my father calls.

I jump off my chair, zoom down the hall and skid into the bathroom,
brakes screeching.

My father hands his razor to me and, in one swipe,
I shave the last tract of lather off his wet pink cheek.

Then I form my hand into a pistol and peel back up the hall.
“Pa-dow! Pa-dow!”

“Of course at this point the quints are easily mistaken for each other
so the nurses have to check their name tags to be sure one isn’t fed

twice while another goes hungry. And still they have to be careful
because Richard and Rita Robertson

have named their all-boy brood
Randy, Rex, Robert, Roger, and Rickey Jr.!

Well, one thing is for sure: the Robertsons will always remember 1959
as the Year of the Big Surprise.”

My sister looks to my father
pat-drying his face in the steamy mirror,

then to my mother, her spatula flipped,
snowplowing through the scrambled eggs.

“I should say so!” my mother cries.
“Pa-dow!” I shout as I shoot my sister,

who shuts her eyes, bites her lips, then
turns and, from the cupboard,

grabs a serving bowl for the eggs,
rattling the dishes.

*