Work Text:
verse one
Polly jumps rope, then falls on her back in the grass, giggling. “Let’s blow bubbles in the breeze,” she tells her sister. Her sister, Betty, always follows her. Their mother always scolds her. Their father always watches her, scowling.
As the bubbles float around their heads, Polly picks up the rope to jump into them. She wants to jump or float or run or swim or fly. She wants to go where Betty cannot follow, where their mother cannot scold, where their father cannot scowl.
She runs away, and they chase her. She hides, and they find her. She’ll have to wait, then. She’ll have to yearn a little longer.
verse two
On Polly’s twelfth birthday, the sugar on her cake sparkles in the sunbeams, and the tiara in her blonde hair sparkles, too. She pretends she is a princess—or better yet, a queen, but the twins are the ones who hold court on the playground.
They are red-haired and marble-pale, like Tudor aristocrats. They walk in lockstep, though they don’t share much besides looks. The boy-twin, Jason, is mostly still and quiet; he knows his voice is as captivating as the Pied Piper’s melody. The girl-twin, Cheryl, shouts and bares her teeth. She stomps the grass flat with her red Mary Janes, ordering Betty to pour her a lemonade. Betty pours, because she always follows orders. Polly and her sister don’t share much besides looks, either.
Polly watches Jason. He looks otherworldly. He lives in a world she wants to run to but cannot reach.
Her father says, “Don’t talk to those red-haired twins.”
verse three
Her father says, “We make our own name, and we pen our own stories.” But the name is his, and the story is his. Polly does not want them.
Her mother says, “Listen to me. Learn to beg pardon, and I’ll make you a lady yet.” Polly doesn’t want to beg pardon. She doesn’t want to be a lady. She wants to be otherworldly: powerful and captivating and free.
She puts on a satin bow headband, pretending it is a tiara, and dances, jumping for Cheryl and her court. She’ll make herself powerful, captivating, and free. And if her father watches, scowling, and her mother scolds? All the better.
Off the dance floor, off the football field, she is still and quiet. She watches Jason share milkshakes with other girls. He doesn’t see her, so she’ll have to wait. She’ll have to yearn a little longer.
verse four
Jason watches her dancing, still and quiet. When her white sneakers touch the grass again, he asks, “Would you like to share a milkshake?”
For the first time, Polly wants to follow. But he links arms with her, courtly as an aristocrat, and they walk in lockstep to the diner.
In his most melodic voice, he admits, “Sometimes I want to escape my sister and my mother and my father and our maples. I speed across the football field, and I swim across the river, but I end up back in that forest.”
She kisses him, not gently. (Polly has never kissed a boy before.) She says, “We’ll run away to another world. We’ll rule it together.”
verse five
Jason kisses her in the diner, on the football field, and in his red convertible. He kisses her on the banks of the Sweetwater River, where the moonbeams light their bodies. He wraps his letterman jacket around her shoulders and sings to her, bespelling her with his voice.
A book appears in Polly’s locker, adorned with a red silk bow. (She told Jason her combination on their second date.) It’s the story of a girl who ran away to another world towards men as hedonistic as Tudor aristocrats. The book is his favorite, and so it becomes hers. There is a message on the inside cover: “I love you, I love you, I love you.” Polly touches the red ink, reverent.
When he lays her down on his red silk sheets, her moans echo in the gothic mansion. He gives her orders, and, for the first time, she likes it.
verse six
The boys in letterman jackets are snickering and sneering. They say (he said) that she’s easy, a freak, worth nine points.
Polly sits in her bedroom, alone among the yellow flowers. She presses her palm against her belly and whispers, “Nine points.” She knows her mother and father can hear her crying.
Then a pebble hits her window. She leans out to see Jason standing on the grass, still and quiet, still the only one she’s ever wanted to follow.
He leads her to the banks of the Sweetwater River, the moonbeams lighting his solemn face. “So you were tally marks, a rebellion against my father, not a girl to love, not at first. But wasn’t I a rebellion against yours? You wanted the heir to the kingdom of maples, so you could someday be a queen. You didn’t love me then, either.”
“I love you now,” he murmurs, kissing her, gentle. “Let the past go.” When Polly presses his palm against her belly, Jason swears, “I’ll make you a Blossom. We’ll run away together.”
verse seven
Polly’s face is round, and her belly is round. Her father has locked her in a stone cell. No matter. Although she yearns for her lover, she can wait a little longer.
Betty is the one to find her. “He’s dead,” she says, “washed up on the banks of the Sweetwater River.” Polly jumps from the window to learn that it is true.
In her bedroom, among the yellow flowers, she presses her palm against her belly and imagines it’s his. On the other side of the door, her parents are scolding and scowling.
So Polly flees to the gothic mansion, falling on her back on Jason’s red silk sheets. She cries, “Why have you left me? With your children inside me, I cannot follow.” She hears the girl-twin (the only twin) crying.
Cheryl says, “My brother is gone, so you and I must rule together.”
Her father says, “A Cooper was a Blossom, so you are a Blossom.”
Polly remembers Jason’s words, that day in the diner, and decides, I may be a Blossom twice-over, but I will not be trapped in this forest.
verse eight
Polly’s belly is flat, and her twins are still and quiet. They are blonde, even though they are Blossoms twice-over.
Her lover’s father is a killer, who killed his son. Her father is a killer, who wanted to kill her. No matter; she is in another world. She doesn’t need to jump or float or run or swim or fly. She doesn’t need to pretend her headband is a tiara. It is. She is queen of this world of her own making, though she must rule it alone.
Polly blows bubbles in the breeze, and her babies open dimpled fists toward them, yearning. Polly falls on her back in the grass and cries.