Pantoum for 1979

I’m twenty years old, barely an adult, my belly flat, though inside that belly a baby is growing. Or not a baby—a something, a cluster of cells, lodged in the fallopian tubes. In a few weeks I’ll be in pain, pain like a penknife stabbing me again and again. But for now I’m just a girl in a broken-down Toyota, moving her few belongings into a room in a big red house on the hill.  

Not a baby, I’ll remind myself later, just a cluster of cells, lodged where it didn’t belong. I must have found this house from a message tacked on a bulletin board on campus, an index card with a man’s spidery handwriting looking for boarders. For now I’m just a girl, broken down, with few belongings to move into this big red house on the hill. I got the room set apart from all the others, with no windows, in the back.  

I must have found this house from a message tacked on a bulletin board, after seeing the run-down hippie pads in Arcata, the cluttered trailer in McKinleyville. This house, in Blue Lake, four miles inland, lies just beyond the fog that descends on coastal towns. I chose the room set apart: no windows, in the back. The bus runs several times a day and stops just at the foot of this hill.  

This house in Blue Lake lies just beyond the fog that descends on coastal towns. I’m carrying in some battered boxes of books, a suitcase of clothes, photo albums, a hippie bedspread, some thin pillows. The bus stops with a hiss at the foot of the hill. My new roommate, Francisco—short, dark, a blue headband tied around his forehead—comes up the drive and asks if I need help.  

He carries in a box of battered books, a suitcase, photo albums, my hippie bedspread, and some thin pillows. He smiles a half-smile that reveals bright, small teeth. He wears a blue headband, and his name is Francisco, not Frank. He smells of tobacco and something else I can’t quite pinpoint: sage perhaps, the smell of the desert.  

That half-smile reveals bright, small teeth. We’re in redwood country, and the damp bark of the big trees rises all around us, canopies high overhead filled with birds: red-tailed hawks, osprey, flickers, and ravens. Yet, he smells of tobacco and the desert. The ravens call raucously, as if in warning, caw! caw! caw!  

We’re in redwood country, and the birds flock like omens: hawks, osprey, flickers, and ravens. I’ll lie in my bed in that dark, paneled room, aware of Francisco and his energy pulsing in a room on the other side of the house. The ravens will wake me up with their caw! caw! caw! We’ll play basketball together, and he’ll dribble the ball by me, touch me just once on the hip with the back of his hand. 

Later I’ll lie in my bed in that dark paneled room, aware—so aware—of Francisco on the other side of the house. In my mouth, the taste of honey; in my knees, an ache. He touched me just once on the hip with the back of his hand. That’s all it took to determine what happened next. 

In my mouth the taste of honey. I baked loaves and loaves of bread for all the boys in that house, after the baby—the cluster of cells—was gone. That’s all it takes sometimes: the crust of chewy bread and pats of butter to melt on the tongue. In the redwoods, he gave me the name Little Raven.   

I baked loaves and loaves of bread for the boys in that house, after the baby was gone. I was twenty years old, barely an adult. On my tongue, the name Little Raven, a bird that seemed like a sentinel. The pain, like a penknife, stabbing again and again.  

Brenda Miller’s most recent collection is A Braided Heart: Essays on Writing and Form. She is the author of five more essay collections, including An Earlier Life, which received the Washington State Book Award for Memoir, and she is the recipient of seven Pushcart Prizes. Her book of collaborative essays with Julie Marie Wade, Telephone: Essays in Two Voices, received the Cleveland State University Poetry Center Award for Creative Nonfiction. She coauthored, with Suzanne Paola, the textbook Tell It Slant: Creating, Refining, and Publishing Creative Nonfiction, now in its third edition from McGraw Hill. She also edited the new anthology The Next Draft: Inspiring Craft Talks from the Rainier Writing Workshop, published by University of Michigan Press. Her website is brendamillerwriter.com. 

This essay originally appeared in An Earlier Life, (Ovenbird Books, 2016).