| Like music! Cleo laughed merrily, and drew Carrie in who offered the warm golden square upon her palm. |
| The laughter startled me; I was not ready for it. Strangely keyed I was, tightened against I knew not what and had no premonition or expectation; it was only the shock of a warm Belgian waffle when I had expected, I had been, oh, so far. |
| Carrie offered the waffle to Cleo and,
extended, chose that moment to dollop it generously
with white whipped cream. I remembered marzipan, the waffle of Belgian Ringa who had, without doubt, run through sea-salt grass and skated on blue ice under a wide black sky and been unafraid. She had not been afraid until she reached Venice. |
| Carrie reached deep into her leathern bucket
with its leather strap extracting
from within its nested secret pouch another
waffle magically as if a minute witch cackled
there waving maniacally flat pan and flat blade creating
sweet wonders with enviable skill.
If 1 might envy a witch.
If 1 dared. Carrie seemed not to care. She dolloped again and with outstretched arm offered her gifts to Elaine, to Violet, and to Rose. She must call Rose thrice who then raised her darkling eyes which glowed and hesitating gazed upon the waffle as though it had been a bold doubloon. Violet nudged her gently, and Rose accepted. |
| There was 1 for Esme(e) who lingered removed in short green jacket and dun trousers tracing pale stalks through her fingers and her eyes, hazel, hazel midst trees and jacket and meadow grasses but not dependent on them, and her eyes were thinking of what no reflections could intimate. Of what we hoped they would not. Esme(e) sliced a pear the color of meadow grass in her strong fingers. Her long hair was braided. Some wound round her skull and several fell down her back. |