…. She watched him dip into a bin, take out a coil of dripping cane, cut off a length, roll it in his hands until it was pliable. He tied the cane strip through a hole in the frame of the seat and pulled it taut. Then he lashed it diagonally to a hole on the opposite side of the frame. He worked crosswise diagonal strips next, then attached the straight cane strips to the frame of the seat, weaving them through the diagonals and inserting carved wooden pegs to leave octagon-shaped holes. She liked to see him whisk the cane through the seat. She liked the way the cane bounded from him, the way he brought it back. She loved his hard hands working cane.
Around the porch, children’s voices echoed in the summer dusk. Crepe myrtle trees made swaying shadow scapes on the lawn and gravel road. The garden below the porch held a lushness of opening night blooms. Inside voices floated on the gardenia air…..
by Kathleen Burke
Kathleen received an MA in English from the University of New Orleans with a creative thesis, completing the coursework for her Ph.D. in English at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She currently teaches English part-time at Keiser College in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Kathleen is completing a short story entitled Talking to the Dead in New Orleans which is an excerpt from her novel called Filling the Bowl, written about the hurricane that inundates the city where she was born and brought up. Since the events of Hurricane Katrina, Kathleen is working on the second novel The Big Blue in a series of five based on research about critical environmental issues.
