Ways of Karst

The hole drinks the grass, the leaves, the twigs, and our favorite park bench. Insatiable. Thirsting. It then drinks the sidewalk where little kids and their mothers play games like ‘avoid the shark’ and ‘alphabet hop’.  But children don’t play on the sidewalks anymore. 

***

You jump right into the middle of the group, your gloves and hat tossed to the ground, and the children gather around you, fluvial and seamless as a conga line. A waterfall of stubby, sneakered feet and flailing hands as the collective wades down the pastel-etched course, hopscotching to a rhyme. 

1-2-3-4. 

Mama said be home by four.

5-6-7-8. 

Mama said don’t be late.

***

In the beginning, no one knows what caused the holes. No one knew what was happening or why. But I know.

Sinkholes are proof of movement, underground streams etching away limestone, fluting through rock. They coalesce: one depression joining another to create flat floor basins, underground caverns, dissolute rock formations. Known as karst, they are absences, evidence of what was once solid and certain but is now empty, disappeared.

***

We play in the park. You on the swings. Me on the bench, watching. Or we buy hotdogs and have a picnic. You climb the dogwoods or throw pennies into the fountain.

“Listen, Mama, I wish…”

“Don’t tell me, kiddo, otherwise it won’t come true.”

You place one finger against pink lips, nod, then close your eyes. I take another sip.

Later we skip across the grass, swinging hands, and then hop down the chalked outline, calling out the letters and numbers as we go. You want one more slide, one more turn on the merry-go-round.

So I leave you there, go for a quick nip around the corner.

***

Over time the holes multiply. People suggest fencing them in, since they can’t be filled, as if anyone can stop a hole as if a hole can be contained.

Over time the holes grow louder. They echo and judder. Reverberate. They whisper to me, enticing and lucid, like the moment that first drink hits your veins. I hear them calling still, like the wind, sere and desolate, cutting between the skyscrapers, slicing down the sidewalks.

***

 That’s where they found you, crying on the sidewalk, scared and alone.

***

Sinkholes devour but also create—space and openings. And I think, maybe the holes aren’t holes at all but tunnels connecting me to you. A wormhole to a distant galaxy where mothers and children never separate. Where time and liquid do not matter. Where mistakes can be undone.

This morning I leave the apartment, take the stairs down to street level and buy hot coffee from a street vendor at the corner of the park. My throat aches. But coffee is all I will drink today.

The hole in Washington Square shudders and shimmers when I come near. The liquid black at the center eddies and shakes. I stand at the edge, lean over, look down, wonder if there’s any difference between jumping and falling.