The Corduroy Mtn. giraffes J.A. Tyler SEE IT GOES UP she says and I say, like I'm supposed to say, YEP. There are things we are supposed to say. I say YEP and OKAY and ALRIGHT. Sometimes I say SURE. I know in a place like this, this time, standing watching the tall necks of these giraffes and the chew of their food sinking down in stomachs and carrying back up, like an elevator, that I am supposed to say YEP. She says SEE IT GOES UP, my mom, and I am supposed to say YEP. I do, I say it. I say what I am supposed to say. At night when she kisses me my mom she says DON'T LET THE MOON KEEP YOU AWAKE, AND DON'T LET IT GET YOU. and I smile and laugh and she smiles too and I say I LOVE YOU and she says I LOVE YOU BACK. She is always worried, my mom, that the moon will keep me awake, that the moon will come in the night and carry me away, in a sack or on its back, like a giant with world long legs and messy black hair. The moon is not a monster and I know it is not a giant but my mom she says it anyway, about the moon, and sometimes I believe her. Sometimes I think she thinks the moon might keep me awake or carry me away. She believes, my mom. She believes enough that it goes to me too, sometimes, into me, so that I get up when she is out of the room and the light from under the door is not coming from under the door anymore and I climb into the rocking chair and put my head under the curtains and look. Those are nights I believe, when I have to eyeball the moon to keep it away, to keep it from coming into my room, just so I know it is there. GROSS she says when it goes up, this chew in those giraffes' mouths. YEAH I say, GROSS. She smiles and I smile and the eyes of the giraffes are moons today, the things we watch. She believes in giraffes, my mom, she believes in everything. Sometimes it makes me believe too, her belief in everything, so I keep watching the giraffes, making sure they don't put her in a sack, my mom, or on their backs to carry her somewhere else. DON'T LET THE GIRAFFES GET YOU I say to her and she says back, my mom, I WON'T. previous | next Added to The Corduroy Mtn. on February the Fifteenth in the year Two Thousand and Nine.