Two Tales From The Past
Will de Kypia

THE LESSON
This happened a long time ago, before cars
had seatbelts and airbags like they do now.

Foggy morning and the boy's going a bit fast
for a beginner. Suddenly there's a semi looming
ahead, dead in the road. He hits the brakes, hard
but too late. The old man's riding shotgun. No
chance to brace, he hits the windshield, hard.

Squinting through the blood,
the father pulls his dazed son
over to the passenger side behind
the crazed and gory windshield.
Then he gropes around the car,
climbs into the driver’s seat, and
lays his broken pate on the wheel,
never minding the horn’s blare.

When the cops arrive, they find the kid
paging through his learner’s manual,
asking over and over

__“Dad, what am I supposed to do now?"

A PERMANENT SCAR
When we were kids our parents
got us a dog at the animal shelter.

Not a puppy, an older dog
that no one else wanted.
A pet and a project.

“Abused,” the staff told us.
“It will take time to heal
her, and a lot of love.”

We named her Lorna Doone
after a novel my mother liked.

Small but stocky with tan spots above the
eyes, she made us think there might be a
bit of Rottweiller or something in her.

Lorna was mean from the start. She had
learned this nasty trick of raising her head
toward a friendly stranger’s outstretched hand
as if to sniff it. Then she’d suddenly lunge,
viciously biting the hand if she could.

And she stayed mean. All that love we gave
her was not enough for her to forget whatever
bad things had happened before she came to us.

Afraid to let her outside, we kept her inside. She
slept on a quilt in one corner of the basement.

You could talk to her and touch her but she never
grew friendly or even comfortable with people.

She did not play, and she would ignore the food
you brought her until you left, then eat alone.

Eventually she became a curiosity of the house we
showed off to our guests, like a bookcase concealing
the entrance to a secret underground passageway.

The last time I saw her was a week before she died.
Home from college, I went down to her corner.

“Hey, Lorna girl, how are we feeling?”

Eyes clouded by cataracts, she stared.
Raised her greyed muzzle, teeth bared.
Then she caught my scent and relaxed,
let me pet her body, run my fingers
across her lean, lusterless pelt.

Those blind eyes watched me as I stood up.

“Bye now, Lorna, bye bye.”

Some wounds will not heal.

__
For a change of season__