Labor Pangs by Jason Fraley

Labor Pangs 1

Before I was born, grandma extends a long match into the furnace. It spans most of the living room floor. Witnesses who described the heat as suffocating hang on the walls. When the furnace ignites, the power sometimes disappears, intimidated. During one of these episodes, I appear in my mother’s arms, swaddled in a patch-cloth pink blanket. As a boy, I’m upset. I grip a corner, rub and rub and rub until threads fray, yawn through to a worn carpet’s brown mouth. Later in life, I learn the connection between absence and love. There’s a thud at the door. Today’s newspaper headline: scientists discover gaps in the sky, name them clouds. How many things have existed forever, just waiting on the right language?

Labor Pangs 2

Hours after I’m born, we have new windows installed. Hours after the installers wipe their fingerprints from the windows, a stranger heaves a moon slice into the dining room. The stranger soon follows through the jagged curtain. Bandages white as bleached barnacles span his knuckles. He claims the moon put up a fight. He claims babies hide bits of moon between their ribs. I don’t yet know nervousness. He lifts me up like a limp kitten. Mother is on the phone regarding the window’s warranty. The stranger lays me beside the moon slice, evaluates my firmness, luminance, and blemishes. He surmises I’m no moon smuggler, though his glass eye is unwavering. He bends low, hoists the moon over his shoulder. Before stepping outside, the stranger tells me to watch out for meteors. They have a way of dimpling new moons.

Jason Fraley is a native West Virginian who lives, works, and periodically writes in Columbus, OH. Current and prior publications include Salamander Magazine, Barrow Street, Pithead Chapel, Quarter After Eight, Mid-American Review, and Okay Donkey.