Imagery

"For My Children" Mary Karr

After high school, I ran away to the coast, slept in a pink Lincoln Continental, on blocks in a deserted lot. By day, I body-surfed the hollow waves. From orchards I stole fruit, stuffed it in my tee-shirt like breasts I didn't have.

Boredom never troubled me. At night I travelled everywhere on LSD. From the warm leather of the dead car, I toured the rolling stars, or the great plains spotted with buffalo on a beer can, the nearby sea rushing like a train,

earth turning beneath my seat like a carpet yanked by some giant hand. Once I saw my entire history in an avocado seed, a quick replay of all my dawns, until I stared, breathless, at the green pulp in my cupped palms.

Eyes like black moons from every bad trip you ever heard. Next day I called my mom. I spent my mayonnaise jar of cash, saved for a Mexican holiday, on my ticket home, then college, then this respectable job with my name

embossed on creamy cards, my mail arriving every day. I hardly budge. This story isn't meant to warn: no shark ever circled me, nor did local cops plot my arrest for drugs or vagrancy. And don't fear

aging, stalling in your tracks, a locked engine, churning in sand.