Starkweather Gina Bennett Wide open spaces -- wide open wind -- fifteen iced winters, fifteen vacant years, I fell down in the farmhouse, my father's black farmhouse & my mother's flat silence, my father's dull beatings, my dull blackened skin alloyed with the cold. Wide open spaces -- but Charlie came to them, shrank up the land, held off the wind, called me down from my window with his car radio playing & springtime in his blonde blonde hair. Wide open spaces -- but Charlie came through them; slid like a sunbeam unlocking numb earth, gathered me up, still, still, in the bright hush, my skin sweet pink, on glowing bones. & the whistling wheat fields, my father's black farmhouse, then Charlie came to them, Charlie came Charlie drowned the dark stairwell in warm thick vermilion, spun the dead snow into a red red bougainvillea blossom. Wide open spaces -- Charlie drives me away, one hand on the wheel, one hand to my cheek, a fingertip kiss. Wide open spaces, through the windshield, in me. © Gina Bennett Submit your comments on this story to our MoxieTalk discussion group by clicking here!   You can also send your comments directly to the author using the form below. You can do both by typing your response below, submitting it and then copying it, going to MoxieTalk, and pasting it into the form there for posting a message. Please include your e-mail address if you would like the author to be able to write you back. [FrontPage Save Results Component] Copyright 2002 Moxie Magazine All Rights Reserved