Hawaii Pacific Review

by Hillary Moses Mohaupt

I. Prairie State
When the basement floods, I know exactly what to rescue first. The matching end tables are both too boxy for me to heave upstairs on my own, but I am on my own, so I take the first one in my arms and muscle it up one step at a time, because I remember these tables in my grandmother’s condo, remember the fragile glass lamps that sat atop each one. I don’t remember what my grandmother kept in the drawers of these tables when they were hers—perhaps her church directory, her TV remote controls, a phone book, miscellaneous plastic toys for her grandchildren to puzzle over. Now that they are mine, the table drawers are stuffed with throw pillows I’ve no other place for, and I don’t know where I’m going to put these tables now, except they must go somewhere for safekeeping. I tuck one into the corner of my son’s playroom, where it sticks out like an apartment building looming over a city block, and that’s exactly what it becomes, my son flying his Matchbox helicopters over it like any other landmark in his imaginary play. Continue reading →