Surrender, and: Jazz, and: Dyeing Her Hair, and: Ode to Boredom Ellen Bass (bio) Surrender Ellen Bass I thought she would want to save me from it, the stench and shame, but in the last week of dying, my mother let me change her diaper, let me wipe her with a warm wet cloth and slide the sheet under her hips, the flesh softening, the bones widening, gravity pulling her back to earth like any fallen fruit. I need to say how precise she was. She had a rage for order, my mother. In the store she wrapped half pints of cheap vodka with the same care she gave to Chivas Regal. She smoothed the glossy holiday paper, folding the torn edge under, sharpening the crease with her thumbnail, tucking the ends into a humble origami. I thought she’d cling to her dignity, but she seemed to forgive her body, all its chaos and collapse, or maybe it was a final ripening of trust or love, abandon. I’m not sure what to call it. [End Page 110] Copyright © 2009 The Curators of the University of Missouri Jazz Ellen Bass Today I’m thinking about this child’s life— the rags of it, the ragged waves of it, the vaporous fumes of it, the split tree, stomped out spark, the one-eyed, peg-legged pirate of it, the over-ripened kissed to bruises fruit, the exposed negative, the burned out bulb marquee. And then I start thinking maybe there’s hope. Maybe her life could be like jazz that starts out with a simple melody, nothing complicated, nothing jittery or twisted, and then breaks off, kisses it, waves goodbye, ripens the notes, tears the tune to rags, strips it, pokes out an eye, burns it, sends it up in smoky wreaths, reaches inside and steals the honey, bees streaming in black ribbons from the hive, and when it seems as though it’s long gone, ashes and bone, when it’s strung out, wrung out, blasted with a wrecking ball, bombed out, concrete dust, it slides over and spirals up in one high thin note stretched so far you can’t tell if the ache is bitter or sweet, it returns to the melody, rinsed pure and clean of the past, you almost can’t bear it, the deliverance, the song come home. [End Page 111] Copyright © 2009 The Curators of the University of Missouri Dyeing Her Hair Ellen Bass My daughter sits in the yard in my old nightgown while I work the chemicals down to the roots, grateful to have an excuse to touch her. In the last sun of the afternoon, her hair drinks in the deep paprika hue. She’s safe. It’s the end of August, the apricots finished, dark stains where they fell on the path. She leaves tomorrow, returning to a life so dangerous I have to exile my heart. Even now, with my fingers deep in her hair, there’s a window between us, like the glass that separates inmates and visitors. Oh love, the terror, Anne Sexton said it. Every sorrow is something that once brought you joy. Last winter, when I hadn’t heard from her for months, I took all the photos out of their cheap albums where acid was eating the image away. Every day I wish my mother were alive to comfort me. I’m grateful my wishes have no power. How could she bear to watch me baptized in these dark waters, heart strewn on the surface like shards of moon. Heart dragged by a horse through the streets. Heart stretched like the necks of Kayan women, one brass coil after another added slowly through the years, compressing the ribs, crushing bone. [End Page 112] Copyright © 2009 The Curators of the University of Missouri Ode to Boredom Ellen Bass We gathered firewood. We gathered walnuts and cracked them on the flat stone wall, black hulls staining our hands. Janet took a photo of Max and me, looking up from the pile of shells. My hair blown across my face. The wings of his small eyebrows raised as if asking a question. Late afternoon, the rose...