Liddy Levitates

Liddy levitates
Because the pool is gone

The lining ripped
And her father was glad

Secretly glad

That he would no longer
Have to run the net across the top of the water
Seeing how many dead bugs
Would cling to it

Doing this made him think of mortality

It also prevented him
From enjoying the pool

Because he could see the ghosts of the dead bugs
Swimming by him in tiny bathing suits
As he'd attempt to relax
And float
In serenity

So when the lining ripped
He claimed financial hardship
As the reason he couldn't fix it
And went back to spending too much time on his lawn
Like a normal person

Her mother was more morose
About the pool lining ripping
But that was because
She didn't have to gather up the corpses
Of the dead bugs
Like her husband did

Liddy's mother knew a trick
That involved focusing on her body
So much
That it became filled with attention
And thereby sunk
To the bottom of the pool
Where she could lay for a solid seventeen minutes
Which was deemed impossible
By anybody who knew anything about science
And yet happened
Every time Liddy's mother
Got in the pool

'Sink, Mom, sink!' Liddy would say

And her mother would go down

Down, down, down
To the bottom

Then one day, while looking for something to do in her backyard
Liddy realized that if her mother was an expert at sinking
Then it only stood to reason
That she could be an expert at floating

Oh sure, it would be easier to float in a pool
But it couldn't be entirely necessary, could it?

Liddy stood in the place
Where the pool used to be
And slowly lifted up her left leg
Then her right
Then lay back
As if onto an invisible hammock
Or an invisible bunk bed
Or an invisible line in the air
That could be adjusted
And moved, if necessary

But again, very little was necessary
Because of how hot it was

Liddy would often hear her mother
Say something to that effect

As soon as the weather warmed up
It was--

'Liddy, stop jumping around.  It's too hot for it.  It's not necessary'

And--

'Liddy, I'm not cooking dinner tonight.  It's too humid for it.  It's not necessary.'

And--

'Liddy, stop asking your father about the pool.  It's late July.  People don't like being nagged in late July.  It's not necessary.'

Well, gravity didn't seem necessary either

And so Liddy levitated

. . . . .

When Liddy's mother looked out the kitchen window
She nearly dropped the turtle bowl
That Liddy ate her cereal out of

There was something Carribbean about the girl
That always scared her mother
But levitating was a step too far

She went out to the front lawn
And told her husband
To go bring Liddy down

But when Liddy's father heard about the levitation
He immediately thought of the bugs
And told his wife that Liddy was amongst them now

She was of a higher plane

'Of or on,' his wife said
'It doesn't matter,' he said, 'Why bring her down?  It's not necessary.'

Liddy's mother, ironically
Disagreed

What Liddy's father didn't tell her mother
Was that he felt it was pointless
To try and stop Liddy now

She was the reason
He took the steak knife
Out to the pool
And hacked at the lining
Until the water and ghosts
Poured forth unto the yard
And the living soil
Soaked up the excess
Of all that was dead
Or in limbo

There was something biblical about it

Liddy's father did this
Because he saw his daughter
Floating three inches
Above the water

She was half-asleep and half-aware
So he was able to slowly move her back down to the surface
Without her noticing
But it seemed like now she knew
That this was something she was capable of

It was then he knew
That the pool had to go

Between his daughter's floating
And his wife's sinking
Liddy's father found it increasingly hard to ignore
That his wife and his daughter
Were not going to die

Not the way he was, anyway

One would go down, down, down
Into the earth
And come up again
As a flower or an eggplant

The other would float up, up, up
Into the sky
And disappear from view
Like a child's balloon

And Liddy's father would simply die
Die and be forgotten

And so the pool was merely a reminder for him
Of not only his mortality
But his normalcy

His forgetabliity

He thought about this
As he mowed the lawn
And without meaning to
He mowed three feet down
Before he realized
How far he'd gone

. . . . .

Liddy's mother walked straight into the backyard
And up to her daughter

She examined her for a moment
To make sure she wasn't possessed
By either the Heat or the Devil

Then she rested her hand
On her daughter's shoulder
And began to fill her
With attention

Liddy began to sink to the ground
And so she instinctively put her hand
On her mother's shoulder

What happened next
Was a contradiction of sorts
Or perhaps more of a balancing equation

Liddy's mother was lifted
As Liddy was brought down

And so they found themselves
Facing each other

One of their hands
On the other one's shoulders

And they stayed this way
For a moment

With each paying attention to the other
Acknowledging for the first time
That there was something different
About themselves
And the person they were looking at

And also recognizing that perhaps
In some ways

They were alike

They stood there like that
Until Liddy's father
Climbed out of the hole in the front yard
And walked to the back

To see his daughter
And her mother

Keeping each other
Exactly
Where the other
Needed to be