Hiding in the Zinnia Forest

 Artist: Georges Rochegrosse - The Knight of the Flowers, 1894

Hiding in the Zinnia Forest

                   By Mushroom Montoya

A photo of a boy hiding in the flowers

Sent me back to 1954,

To our newly built Albuquerque house

On Boatright Avenue,

One block east of Wyoming.

 

A four-year-old boy,

a whole year younger than I,

Wearing clip-on suspenders

To hold up his pants

 

Walked across our lawn,

His eyes transfixed on the shiny,

green aluminum glass of water

He was holding.

 

I was playing with a brown rubber band

That had bound the morning paper.

I pulled it and stretched it

In every direction.

 

Until an idea jumped into my head

That lead

Me to shoot my brown rubber band

Into his shiny, green aluminum glass.

 

I did not know

That my brown rubber band

Would bounce off the rim

And sting his nose,

 

Making him cry,

With a torrent of tears,

That weakened his grip,

Making him drop his green aluminum glass

Onto the sidewalk.

 

Fear of my father's belt,

Fear of my mother's admonishment,

Fear of the angry faces

Of our guests

 

Made me run and hide

In the far corner of our front yard,

Behind the side yard forest

Of tall blooming Zinnias.

 

I did not answer

When my father called.

I heard my name yelled

Over and over

By every one of the guests.

 

I crouched down lower

When my mother walked by

Hunting for her missing son.

 

I dared not move

Or reveal my whereabouts

Because I didn’t want to feel

The sting of the belt.

 

So, there I knelt,

Hidden by the tall Zinnia forest,

In the corner of the cinder block walls

Until

 

My uncle searched

in our neighbor’s yard

And then peered over the cinder block fence

And into the forest of Zinnias.

 

He spied me crouching

In the furthest corner,

Making myself smaller than the flowers

That towered over me.

 

My mother was crying,

“We were so worried about you.”

I started to cry

When my father removed his belt.

 

“I’m not spanking you

For shooting the rubber band,”

My father said

Making me realize

The boy was a snitch.

 

“I’m spanking you

Because you did not answer

When we called.”

 

He pulled down my pants,

While flinging his belt,

Burning a welt

Into my butt.

 

But I must admit

That I am fond of Zinnia forests,

Although they are so much smaller

Than they were

When I was a kid in 1954.