Spirited Away1st Place in the Poetry Writing Contest
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Issue 19
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She says his name is Chihiro, the
black and brown dog I see a few times a day now, across the street. When the sirens sound. Like the anime? I ask and she says she doesn’t know, he was a rescue and came with his name and I say he’s sweet and she says he speaks at least three languages. And she tells him to sit in Hebrew and he does and we compare how long it took us to make dinner yesterday, with the up and down the stairs and the sirens and lighting the oven and turning it off and she says today her only goal is to clean the oven. Mine, I say to clean the dryer filter. We nod and laugh, happy we could take showers, not wash our hair, not enough time for all the products, but the body. We pause. Count our blessings. And the Russian boy plays his video game and the baby coo’s, wide-eyed, adorable. The American with blue nails reads a James McBride book. It’s a good book, I told her yesterday. Or, was it the day before? Or night? I sleep in my clothes, shoes by the bed. Last night I slept with my shoes on. On the couch, close to the door. Is it Tuesday tomorrow? My doctor’s appointment was cancelled. All appointments are cancelled. I want to go back. To a simpler time. Before war. To appointments and dance classes. To decades before. With children now an ocean away. Together, snuggling with purple fleece blankets and homemade dolls on an old red couch with golden swirls. Eating popcorn and sliced apples. Watching Chihiro in French. And unlike my kids understanding only every fifth word. Do you know what it means? I ask the lady about her dog’s name. She says no and I tell her it’s Japanese for endless search. And I pet him, just as we get the alert on our phones that it’s safe to leave. And we say lehitrayot, not farewell or even good-bye but see you again. Soon. Which we will. Hours later. |
DR. TARA W. ZAFFT won 1st Place in the Poetry Writing Contest. She is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in several anthologies and literary journals. She has a forthcoming chapbook, Sketches – Becoming a Body, published by Moonstone Press. She has a BA in Russian Literature from UC San Diego and a Ph.D. in Modern Languages from the University of Bath, UK.
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