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Jessie Kramer
Black and White Girl
Hang the black blouses on the line please. Black because the only colors she wears are black and white, and the whites must be bleached when they are ready because those are the rules of laundry and because the sheets and towels are also white and must be bleached when they are washed because those are the rules of towels and sheets.
The neighbor is out, smiling, on her knees in the dirt on the other side of the link fence, weeding flowers, ready to chat. Purple and fuchsia and violet spurt violently into life around her waist. Things seem different with the neighbor but it’s hard to tell for sure because when the black and white girl is inside, the neighbor girl is outside, and when the black and white girl is outside, the neighbor girl is nowhere.
He hangs the last of the black blouses on the line and looks over the back fence at the neighbor’s house where the siding is separating and white unpainted vinyl shows at the places where the pieces are joined together because the men who installed it didn’t paint it before putting it up, like you’re supposed to do. The white didn’t show at first. Nobody does anything right anymore when it comes to installing siding or being faithful to your wife.
The black and white girl is outside, arms full of damp, bland clothing.
About the writer:
Jessie Kramer is an English adjunct at Rochester College in Rochester Hills, Michigan, where she teaches creative writing and literature. She is currently at work on a collection of essays. Her poetry and flash have been published in small magazines and contests, including Flash Fiction Magazine.
Image: Head of a Young Woman by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). Black chalk and charcoal, with stumping. 12.375 x 18.3125 inches. Between 1863 and 1865. Public domain.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprint Buttonhook Press, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation supporting writers and artists worldwide.
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