Curve of Wind

Richard Denner

Rosco and I wait for the fishermen to return. I sit at a wooden bench near the store at Mt. Baker Resort and watch the clouds change shape. Rosco has my belt around his neck and an eight foot tow chain hooked to a tree. Dogs must be on a leash. Ducks and rabbits are loose.

An attractive teenage girl wearing white shorts and a pink short-sleeved top sunbathes in the light breeze. I see one cloud as Tristram reclining and a small round cloud as a cup he is proffering to Isoude. The girl listens to her Walkman and glances my way from the crook of her arm. I cannot reduce her pubescent curves to mythological planes.

A tall, burly boy with his gray tee-shirt cut along his ribs comes carrying an armload of boxes and kicking a couple across the grass to the fire pit. A dramatic and disruptive act.

Above them the clouds move ahead in a larger current. The breeze off the lake takes up the huge cardboard ashes from the fire and sprinkles them on the girl. "Thanks, Ron," she says, getting up and shaking her towel. "I'm just trying to help out," he replies from his red pickup truck.

A couple of tame rabbits hop by. Rosco can't even lift his head with the weight of the tow chain. The rabbits disappear under the porch of the store. Still no sign of the fishermen. The cloud that was Isoude has become a free spirit and will not drink from the cup.

Copyright ©2001 Richard Denner. All Rights Reserved.

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March, 2001 Issue #59

256 Words

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