Triptych 2

Triptych 2

by

Matt McGuire

I.

The swing rocked gently, the October air fresh and brilliant with beginnings—gold, red, and green were the colors of my happiest childhood.

She hummed and sang under her breath vibrant tones melancholy, familiar, and mild, a song of Christ and his petted lambs. My feet hung in suspension above the dusty rock porch, swinging, my small, tussled head resting gently on her poly blend sweater, several years until the dread of life would pass the keys of my Etruria. Rose Milk lotion and Downy—never a hint of sin or fear in my Matriarch.

The ceiling, close now then receding chipped white oil base, a brook rippled nearby and tires rang on the road just beyond the trees. Mysteries and wonder danced on every surrounding hill, ripe with corn and the song of cicadas. Blueberry bushes, heavy with sweets lined the sacred grove of Hera where a pea green Pontiac crunched down the gravel.

1979, and the world was well with me.

II.

The Gloria Patri, a chorus of off-key celebrants.

The old Methodist fervor long lapsed into comfort, a fat clergyman, freshly shaven, collar tight and damp rested his Salem caked fingers on a calfskin Dake, the pages gilt and thin as the offering. Abundance rang forth from the altar, his deep basso intoning a minimalist liturgy while a chubby white clad young seraph with rosy temples doused the candles. Slick Drefted garments raked the check carpet floor in procession to the hog feast.

My mother's thin bare hand upon the pew, red blood vessel busted, redder polish immaculately rendered in hopes of a husband, my weary legs anxious for play and the sound of tape recorded bells chiming the wind in sullen, sexless atrophy.

III.

Rain. A long dead cult gathered in my fancy.

I was allowed to remain inside with a thick volume much too advanced for my years. I pored over apocrypha, me, an apostate savoring an incunabulum, a history of the Peloponnesus and environs.

Shields and glory, heroes and bronze gods beckoned me to feats of wonder and wine soaked drama in a forest magical and remote. I reveled, a page to a library savior. I savored the tales of gorgons and winged frights. Hesiod was my best and only companion in a proletariat home tense with poverty.

I cradled Athens to my breast and wept the fate of Medea. I sheared this fleece tenderly of a hardy wolf who stalked the banks where strolling ghosts languished and dreams rippled Time-Life pewter, cut by Charon's prow.