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Andra Simons

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The Joshua Tales: Joshua Visits His Aunt

Joshua Visits His Aunt

Auntie always calls on Wednesday. She wants Joshua to sit for a five course dinner silver spread on her shoulders up the country. Joshua hesitates. Wednesday is the day he kneels under the YeGaFarsaken tree rooted near the sewage pit in the back yard and waits for ‘what’ (?).

Auntie doesn’t understand hesitation. It reminds her of fathers. She doesn’t understand children. They remind her of allergies. She doesn’t understand throats. They remind her of drowning.

Joshua brings her flowers with tin foil at the base. She understands tin foil. She greets Joshua with mooneyes and a smile broad enough to frame Joshua’s hunger, and from the view on her shoulders she feeds him star apples and soy.

Joshua tells her tales of poets and lovemaking and queer kin and wombs and windows, and visions of holes deep in the earth.

She understands holes deep in the earth

 
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