Issue 12
Edge
Gayle Brandeis
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Edges
The Zamboni hums. The ice is choppy, gouged with toe-picks, carved
with the inside edges, the outside edges, of blades. Here, a person did
swizzles across half the rink -- you can see them laid out like a string of
pop-together beads on the ice; here a person did a sit spin and fell
down. Here a person leaped from one foot to the other; you can see the
faint line of take off, the thicker line of landing, the empty space of the
skater's time in the air. Here four people did a crack-the-whip holding hands;
here is where the person on the end flew away around the fastest corner.
The Zamboni lurches onto the rink, sends a sheet of water out of its
back nozzles; the water fills the spaces left by the blades, freezes them
into blankness. Here you cannot see the slush left by a person's hockey
stop; here you cannot see the tracings of a girl's first three-turn. Here
you cannot see the slight indentation left by a skater's elbow, the chip
from a boy's broken tooth, the mark left by his mother's zipper as she went
sliding on her stomach after her bloody son.
~Gayle Brandeis
Gayle Brandeis is the author of Fruitflesh: Seeds of
Inspiration for Women Who Write (HarperSanFrancisco) and The Book
of Dead Birds: A Novel (HarperCollins). Email.
© 2003 by Gayle Brandeis. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2003 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.