In the 70’s, I Confused Macramй and Macabre by Kelli Russell Agodon
I. I wanted the macabre plant holder hanging in Janet and Chrissy’s apartment. My friend said her cousin tried to kill himself by putting his head through the patterns of in his mother’s spiderplant hanger, but the hook broke from the ceiling and he fell knocking over their lava lamp, their 8-track player. His brother almost died a week later when he became tangled in the milfoil at Echo Lake. I said it could have been a very macramй summer for that family.
II. When I looked outside for sticks to make a God’s Eye to hang my bedroom wall, I found a mouse flattened, its white spine stretching past its tail. And a few feet away from that, a dead bird with an open chest. Its veins wrapped tightly together. This neighborhood with its macramй details crushed into the street. I wanted my mother to console me, remind me that sometimes we escape. But when I returned to my house it was empty, except for the macabre owl my mother had almost finished, its body left on the kitchen table, while she ran out to buy more beads.