Ducks, Newburyport

by Lucy Ellmann

rampant passant, the fact that it symbolizes magnanimity, lion sejant erect, lion coward leopardé, salient, sejant, the fact that a lion passant gardant means it’s walking and showing its face, full frontal, the fact that that lion looks so friendly, salient, sejant, sejant erect, sage, birds, dolphins, bears, lion coward, lion dormant, the lion’s share, let sleeping dogs lie, leopard, cows, horses, unicorns, the fact that everything means something in heraldry, dormant, statant, statant gardant, coward, rampant regardant, hauriant, urinant, glissant, pascuant, the fact that pascuant means grazing, the fact that you have to be a cow or a rhinoceros to be pascuant, the fact that lions can’t do it, rhino eyes, the fact that the Open Carry guys might really like this, because heraldic shields are made up of metals and azure and gules and purple and sable, along with fesses, chevrons, bends, birds, bears, reptiles and other very exact and symbolic things, the fact that it would keep them all busy for years, the fact that call me crazy but a concealed pennant sounds a lot safer than a concealed pistol, kids’ samplers, Victory banner, shooting drills,

All mountain lions are one. You are just one example of a lion. Mountain-lionhood is strong and immense, and goes beyond the individual. Each lion is part of a continuum, and privy to everything good and bad that happens to other mountain lions. You tough things out on your own, but you’re linked to the pleasures, pains, and drama, the leap and recoil and lonely deaths of others. All living things are.

the fact that everybody thinks it’s easy and I can just produce all these things like clockwork but, gee, gug, it’s taken years of practice to learn the ropes, the fact that baking cakes and pies for profit is a lot trickier than it looks, the fact that you have to have steady production and consistency, and reliable products, the fact that what I’ve done is invent a job for myself out of nothing and it still feels precarious, the fact that if you’re self-employed there aren’t many perks except privacy, the fact that I am a failure, but Leo still loves me,

the fact that making food for people is actually a highly pressured, skilled, responsible job, just like motherhood, but nobody seems to notice, cooking or motherhood, the fact that they just take it for granted that we’re going to keep our kids safe and make safe food, the fact that pies are light relief though actually, compared to kids, and at least there’s some variety with pie-making, like once in a while I have a cup of coffee with a restaurant manager or a waitress, if I can’t get out of it, that is, and usually they compliment me on my stuff, the fact that once I got written up in the paper, the fact that I had to talk to some woman over the phone and I felt so silly, but I thought I better do it because it might lead to more orders, the fact that most of the time I get my privacy though,

the fact that Mommy passed on when I was in my thirties, twelve years ago now, the fact that she left me, the fact that I can’t bear to even think about all her health problems, the fact that it’s best not to think about it, best to block them out like most other things, like my swimming classes, the fact that that is really all I do all day, the fact that instead of caring for my kids, or Leo, or myself, and loving my customers, all I do is go around in circles trying not to think about my mom, 6 Kinds Of Dizziness, the fact that maybe everybody does that, but look at me spinning around in circles to make my spiraling pastries while I myself spiral out of control like a whirling dervish or whatever, and at the center of the vortex is always Mommy, tornado, waterspout, dust devil, the fact that moms are at the center of everything of course, motherland, mother nature, mother tongue, Mother Goose, mother vinegar, Mommy, mama, so why should my mom be any different,

“A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!”,

Keel was I ere I saw leek,

the fact that Abby saved Mommy’s life in that duck pond, the fact that if she hadn’t gotten Mommy out of the pond, or if their mom hadn’t massaged Mommy’s arm every day for six months when she was a baby, Mommy might not have survived and gotten married and I might never have been born, and then my poor kids wouldn’t ever have existed and Leo would have had to shack up with somebody else, and I would never have known my mom,

the fact that I just realized that when this monologue in my head finally stops, I’ll be dead, or at least totally unconscious, like a vegetable or something, the fact that there are seven and a half billion people in the world, so there must be seven and a half billion of these internal monologues going on, apart from all the unconscious people, the fact that that’s seven and a half billion people worrying about their kids, or their moms, or both, as well as taxes and window sills and medical bills, shut-in, shutout, dugout, bullpen, the fact that that’s not counting the multiple-personality people who must have several internal monologues going on at once, several each,

the fact that I don’t get what’s gotten into daughters these days, the fact that they all seem to hate their moms so much, the fact that why is that, the fact that either moms suddenly got much worse, or daughters did, or else maybe it’s something in the water, water daughter, the fact that it seems to me daughters have never been so down on their moms in the whole of human history,

She listened for their shrill calls, meant only for her ears. But the collective mechanical purring of cars on the highway above created a fuzz of sound: she couldn’t hear the cries of her kits over that. And they did call to her – with all their might – as they were whisked away, along that noisy road in the back of a rattly station wagon, by a couple of do-gooders.

there are other delights in life, there really are, like chickens pecking at the dirt, the curly-cued twistings of bark on our fallen tree, and, and, well, spring, the colors and such, the fact that nature really goes to town on flowers and birds and butterflies, pansies and daffodils, glowing orange poppies, nasturtiums, dandelions, cardinals and bluebirds and kingfishers, indigo buntings and mandarin ducks, the fact that some sunsets and sunrises have a pretty flashy color scheme too, the fact that people always put babies in pastel shades, as if bright colors are too hard on their eyes or something, and then they give them a million toys in bright, primary colors, and I don’t get it, the fact that what I liked best from our whole year in London were my two favorite colored pencils, one very pale pink, the other very pale blue, the fact that I’ve never seen any like that since, never that pale, the fact that I was amazed by the restraint of those two colors, the fact that they seemed extremely subtle and sophisticated to me, the fact that I always used them together in pictures, because I liked to see the pale blue beside the pale pink, so I guess maybe some children do like pastel shades, the fact that I don’t usually like pastel shades, nor beige, nor khaki, the fact that a cat was the mayor of some town in Alaska, Talkeetna, Kittyna, Kittyville, the fact that the cat was mayor for twenty years and died in office,

Finally, the man stood up, spread his feeble arms like shriveled wings, and jumped, screaming, into vacant air. For a moment, he looked almost like a real bird on take-off, but real birds swoop and soar. They float. Fake birds fall straight like stones. At the bottom, he bounced and landed in the damp gully of the river that wound its way around the mountainside. In her hunger, the lioness considered picking on his remains, but she preferred her own kills. And she was repulsed by his unexpected act of self-destruction. There was no shame in curling up somewhere to die when the time came. You must. But to pre-empt it was absurd. Violence shimmered through the killers, irrational and jarring. Cub-stealers, all. Life-wasters. Anyway, she knew the flightless man had probably been torn to shreds by his fall. She had once chased a nervy stag to the edge of a cliff, where he’d heedlessly leapt off into nothingness. Still avid for his flesh, she had carefully padded her way down the rocky mountainside, only to find a mishmash of blood, guts and glistening bones spread wide, fit only for crows.

the fact that Daddy was born on a library table during a storm, the fact that I’ve never understood where that library table was, the fact that I used to think it must have been in the middle of some public library, with library users looking up from their books and hissing “Ssshhhh!” at Grandma, or keeping their heads down, just trying to read while she screamed her head off, the fact that I think Grandma really wouldn’t have minded giving birth in a public library, the fact that she was always kind of a drama queen,