Untitled by Cyril Larvor
The Above-Ground Pool
for Jennifer
Was at first splash, a dream of wealth.
We felt like Illinois millionaires, going
Outside whenever we wanted to, to sip
Bud Light and stay on an interminable
innertube all day long in a real fantasy
pool, over five feet deep and nearing
the size of our backyard. Our two kids,
the ages of kids in children’s books like
Dick and Jane or the Boxcar twins.
The kids were as clever as siblings
in sitcoms and small enough to swim
and still be charmed for hours of Marco
Polo games, Hey, they were delighted
to count to ten underwater and flap
about as if we were at a pink hotel
in Beverly Hills. It was a family thing
all long summer, sifting our activities
to the above-ground pool. Everything
we did was out by the cool water with
heavy liners holding it up. The adult
parties we had with sips of wine on ice,
reading Will Short’s crosswords, taking
a Saturday morning dip before breakfast.
It was a favorite topic after work and not
one day between June and Sept was spent
without at least a nod to a dip or hint
of a float or a lap in that cool perfect
undeserved wetness, that never-ending
above ground pool was our savior. Then,
came the nights, the snow, your complicated
affairs with single baby moms, a cliched,
long, drawn-out divorce, when you
spent our covid years living in a long trailer,
parked and dead in the driveway. The kids
grew into teens overnight, with lives, that
involved bathing in the tub with owl candles
or playing GTA in the renovated basement.
You and I? We went from thinking we had
it all to me sitting on the side porch looking
far off for the shore of the swollen Mississippi
just a block away, and, in between was our thick,
now green, elevated circle taking up the entire
backyard of a pond. The frogs moved in last year,
and, now, I can barely stand in the doorway,
framed by regret and anger. Never mind having
a glass of rosé on a rubber flotation device in the
middle of all that, of what has become thick
messiness and, then, there is the bonus. I have
to think we have a pond with signs of new life
bursting from song sounds, the frogs sing and
swim and the air is like nature, heavy and wet.
I can smell the perfume of outdoors in what I
own, and I am starting to understand what it
must feel like for me to be, here, finally, to
restart the dream I had had long ago, of
being skin-comfortable in my own loud body.
About the author:
Millicent Borges Accardi, a Portuguese-American writer, is the author of four poetry collections, including Only More So (Salmon),. Among her awards are fellowships from CantoMundo, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Fulbright, PEN America, California Arts Council, Foundation for Contemporary Arts (Covid grant), Fundação Luso-Americana (Portugal), and the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation. Millicent is a poetry mentor in the Adroit Journal and AWP Writer 2 Writer summer programs and has recent work in or scheduled to appear in APR, James Dickey Review, and Glass.
In the artist’s words:
Cyril Larvor. My Black Bird artist name is a wink to the crow who is an animal who is often hated by his appearance as the black cat, but who is also revered by a tremendous amount of culture and seen as one of the smarter animals capable of counting and speaking. Speaking … and I have already seen it. I have always drawn, painted and photographed. I wanted to be a cartoonist in advertising or photography, but I went to study in business and computer science. For 15 years I worked in the directions of information and computer security. 3 years ago I stopped to return in my first love the art and the human. My influences are vast; I was born in the 80s in the northern suburbs of Paris where social and cultural diversity is enormous. The 80s were a huge source of artistic inspiration. In addition to contemporary art and all other movements, there was the appearance in France of graffiti, manga, hip hop, computer science and the evolution of photography and television. All this has to influence. Since my return in the art, I exhibit in the galleries. The Lavomatik, also proposes music, the book …. ART21, a gallery in Montmartre, a district which likes and others a little everywhere.
My other activity is in the human and the association. I collaborate with many associations that have been used as a means of communication and income. I collaborated with associations to help orphaned children, children in difficulty, migrants and give them the means to express themselves through Mixart art. An association for the protection of the oceans Bloom. An association against skin cancer Associations against poverty and exclusion: Emmaus, restaurant of the heart… J organizes painting workshops with children or disabled people and also grafiti classes. My inspirations are unlimited, including painting or in pictures, and I like mixing the two. My philosophical tendencies are in sharing, cohesion and construction or reconstruction away from destruction. My tips are simple. Create with your heart and share your art positively. For my art, I use all media and types of paints, but I have a preference for acrylic and aerosol: street art tools, and for digital photography and desktop publishing.
Long live art.