Issue 2, March 2009
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The Magicians
Joe Bonomo
Rainwater pours into dusk, collects in gutter pools and in the brain pan of a mother gone gray with afternoon. Each corner comes on now. Sodden steps shake themselves free into foyers. A light’s turned on.
At the Rec Center, the Magician shakes beads of rain from his coat, feigns majesty in the fluorescence of the large, blank room, unfolds weary instructions and presents himself to six or seven kids believing in the spirit of plastic cups and rice bowls and magic wands and cards before them, eager to learn the presences in the pull of dark comers and brightly dark sleep.
Later, they walk corridors to home, grim in the light fading fast. The Magician in his car sags out of the lot. He’s going home too, they know. Props and gags rattle in a back seat, an hour over, strangers scattering.
Today the drive from school to the magic lesson a dull ache behind the eyes shut tight against the forest-green vinyl, the milky windows. Somewhere supper is imagined, and begun.
Joe Bonomo
Rainwater pours into dusk, collects in gutter pools and in the brain pan of a mother gone gray with afternoon. Each corner comes on now. Sodden steps shake themselves free into foyers. A light’s turned on.
At the Rec Center, the Magician shakes beads of rain from his coat, feigns majesty in the fluorescence of the large, blank room, unfolds weary instructions and presents himself to six or seven kids believing in the spirit of plastic cups and rice bowls and magic wands and cards before them, eager to learn the presences in the pull of dark comers and brightly dark sleep.
Later, they walk corridors to home, grim in the light fading fast. The Magician in his car sags out of the lot. He’s going home too, they know. Props and gags rattle in a back seat, an hour over, strangers scattering.
Today the drive from school to the magic lesson a dull ache behind the eyes shut tight against the forest-green vinyl, the milky windows. Somewhere supper is imagined, and begun.
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