the flicking of the loose end

The Parents
by Kelly Cherry
 
We bring our babies, blue-eyed babies, brown eyed babies, we have come to watch the parade, the marching bands.  Young women step high, batons fly, flash against the sky like lightning rods.  Oh, spare the child, for next come the floats.  See Mickey Duck!  See Donald Mouse!  Snow White rides in her pumpkin carriage, faster, faster, speeding toward marriage with the prince who will give her babies, blue-eyed babies, brown-eyed babies, like our own babies, who are-- lost.  Lost at the parade!  Where are our babies, our babies?  We are looking for them everywhere, frantically, everyone helping and shouting:  Find the babies!-- when suddenly we see them.  No wonder no one could find them.  They have grown three feet taller, sprouted whiskers or breasts, swapped spun sugar for Sony Walkmen.  We kiss them and hug them, but we are secretly frightened by their remarkable new size.  They tell us not to worry.  They will take care of us.  And sure enough, later, we let them drive us home, because their eyes are sharper, their hands steadier, and they know they way, which we forget more and more often.  They stroke our hair and tell us to be calm.  On Saturday, our babies help us choose the best coffin.  They are embarrassed when we insist on taking it home to try it out, but they give in because they don’t want to upset us.  After they leave for the cinema, we climb into the coffin and pull the lid over us.  The salesman had said one wouldn’t be big enough, then said one would not be sanitary.  We laughed:  Age has shrunk us.  We are small enough to fit in here quite comfortably.  It is dark as a movie house, the kind in which we used to neck in the back row.  Now, of course, nothing is playing.  The film has completely unwound, and the only sound is the flicking of the loose end, around and around.