Lubi Barre
Physical Inventory
Physical Inventory
S (Scars)
He has large horizontal stripes on his chest. They look like burns, the skin having healed irregularly. The only answer I was told was that it was from childhood. Some funny boys ritual, placing leaves that burned the skin that left scars that were painful to witness. I wonder what my mother thought when she first saw them, newlywed, on high count Egyptian sheets. Did she run her fingers trying to smooth them on his tan skin?
S (Sweat)
My eight month old sleeps in the Hamburg summer on our dark sheets. There's a wet circle widening above his head. I touch his hair, matted and wet, confused at the lack of sweat on me even though the temperature and humidity are high. It's not until I take a photo and I'm looking at it days later, that I see the resemblance.
My father used to leave sweat patches everywhere. On the car seat as he waited for me in the library parking lot, on the chairs at home, his work out shorts he hung over the wooden bannister daily. His face would drip on his returns from daily runs. I used to think it was embarrassing, appalled at how one human being could sweat so much and not disappear from the loss.
B (Back)
He had this salmon colored heating pad shaped as a bottle, soft to touch, filled with scalding hot water. I saw this accessory almost as much as I saw him.
He used it on his lower back, leaving it there so long white blisters formed on his soft skin, bubbling. He hurt himself to feel better, a habit I carry with me.
Also my back, his back, our back. I carry the pain, that particular weight that targets the backs of moving people.
E (Eyes)
He protected and corrected them behind 70's fashion. One pair against the sunlight, one for printed words, and the other for all else.
I look for them on my return home many years later. I find them in his bedside dresser, unused, unneeded for eyes that no longer focus nor comprehend.
I took them for granted. After all I came from him so noticing specifics comes usually after one has some distance, like after lost years on the liberal streets of Santa Monica, the parties of Hollywood, the co-ed years of Westwood.
But they are blue, pale on the perimeter, hinting at gray. They weren't passed on to this family. So rare, only one of eleven known offspring received them. A boy, also a ladies man, I am told.
T (Tennis)
Red clay courts, I'm brought to see the game. He wears white, he wins.
The ones on our estate are grass green, baking and rising under the consistent sun.
A decade later, manicured suburbs, middle school. I wear a school maroon skirt with pockets, I am good. I play. Singles mostly, like him.
We practice on weekends and he brings white tennis balls, the first I have ever seen. I am good to his 38 years junior. He is also good, the master passing on the agility and importance of athletics. I accept.