I did not know any secrets then, and: Oddest and Oldest and Saddest and Best

Abstract

I did not know any secrets then, and: Oddest and Oldest and Saddest and Best Jane Zwart (bio) I did not know any secrets then but I knew there were secrets. We all knewand we all strong-armed the chesty life vestsback into their shed like loversbacked into closets. Only at that lakedid I play spies; only there did I trywriting with my sinister hand:Tin of poison in nightstand. But it was just decorumputting those deadly caromsin drawers where no one would mind them,including the ants. The only real bane anyone swallowed was rue. No one drowned.No one kissed. No one read mysteries evensent to bed before dark. Sent to bed before darkI listened for the kids from the next cottage plotting. I listened for the adults serriedto keep tabs on the vacant beach. They surveilledeach other. And always, always I fell asleep staring at a poster of scooped ice cream,31 flavors mounded around a mountain pass. When he drove down the steep hill to his parents' cottage [End Page 173] through the pine trees at night, my dad cutthe headlights, of course. [End Page 174] Oddest and Oldest and Saddest and Best My student spends his summers in city cemeteries,clipping the scruff that grows too close to the stones or anywhere the mowers can't go. Sundays mostly the death-jilted come, some to pledge the stiffwith a fifth, some to Windex the pane of granite.Some of those leftcome to sob nearer the leaveror, anyway, nearerthe dregs that pool in their defector's chest. Sundays my student stays home.Mondays he finds the flat and shouldered bottles.He finds a silver pita barely levitatingin the cool of the day,bleeding helium molecules. The remnanttrapped in the Mylarhuddles small for warmth. He finds that those who visit the hours he worksdon't mind the loose orbitthe groundskeepers keeparound their mellowed grief. He tells me about the priestwho lingers after giving a graveside homilyheavy on Jonah. The Lord appointsthe bush and the worm that attacksthe bush. Some of the bereaved, my student says,regain their curiosity. They ask him [End Page 175] about the others' epitaphs: oddest and oldestand saddest and best. [End Page 176] Jane Zwart Jane Zwart teaches English at Calvin University, where she also codirects the Calvin Center for Faith & Writing. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry, Rattle, TriQuarterly, The Poetry Review (UK), and Threepenny Review, as well as other journals and magazines. Copyright © 2020 Emerson College