Small Hands and Carolina Stars

[Jamie Hogan]

Only a brown-eyed woman from a dusty, flat place could keep a promise like she made him. 

 

She had small hands, and as she sang they’d waved in the air like drunken waifs, gently restless, and her voice over that plain and the river behind and the people on their blankets in the grass and the night coming patiently over it all, warmly, the way a father might creep into the room of a sleeping child. Baseball would carry him away from that little fair and that honest Kansas town, as it carried him away from every other thing, but only after she’d put his heart in a cup and placed it above the cabinets, out of the reach of time and other hands.

 

“Walk into any bar where you hear a girl singing and one day the girl will be me,” and she didn’t say it with a breathless, romance novel hope, but with that heartland certitude, words plain and sturdy as the barn her granddaddy built.

 

There are stars that can only be seen from the Carolina shore, and they watched as the voice, yellow and weightless as any wispy thing floating in a June sunset, pulled him along the sullen boards of the pier toward the open bar. As he neared he saw small hands slow dancing with the ocean breeze, heard the sincere strumming of a lone acoustic guitar, and smelled wheat and serendipity blowing in from a couple thousand miles west.

[Jadie Jones]

lovely and vivid. Well done!

[Bill Floyd]

He's back.

[Kaylynn Phillips-Temple]

"words plain and sturdy as the barn her granddaddy built" .... This line hits home for me. Can't get over it. I love it. Great 6!!!

[Brittany]

only love could guide a man's heart and hand to write something this beautiful. you do your heart and your woman justice with every line. quite nice Carolina.

[Joey Delgado]

"Walk into any bar where you hear a girl singing and one day the girl will be me...."
This belongs in the pantheon of great lines that should be filmed in black and white and spoken by some full-lipped 40s siren of the silver screen.

The whole piece was beautiful, but that line.....ooof.

[Jeanette Cheezum]

That last paragraph was perfect.

[Paul de Denus]

My first reading of this was in its current form but after reading some of the comments about the opening sentence I went back and absorbed how that sounded. Funny, but on my first reading of it I substituted the word "some" instead of "a" because it indicated some place in general. Either way, it's a wonderful piece , "words plain and sturdy" in typical Hogan style.

[Mike Handley]

I like it better, but I do see yours and Judy's points. Hmmmmm ... Welcome to my world, an editor's world. Many, many times, I wind up back at point A, but I feel better having taken the trip, ya know?

You know I love you, man. I don't leave catty remarks on tripe.

[Judy Thompson]

well,  that's smoother but now  you have three 'a's in the first line.  If you change  "keep a promise like she made him" to "keep  promises like the one she made him."  that might work.  

 

(retreating to a safe corner)

[bolton carley]

damn it!  why does it just have to be the brown-eyed girls from the fly-over states???? :)