Weather Vane and Wings

She rubbed her lips together and was instantly struck by the taste of lipstick. It assaulted her tongue like the flavor of a mildly rotten grape mixed with schoolhouse chalk. It grated on her teeth and reminded her of mornings she didn't have time to brush her teeth, and the foods she'd eaten the night before formed an odd, dry flavor in her mouth. It clung to her tongue like a wad of fatty tissue bitten inadvertently from the side of her mouth. It was like that piece of tissue that, once bitten off, cannot simply be pulled from the mouth because people are around. So she let it linger in her mouth until she was away from people and could spit it out. Only now the lipstick taste reminded her of a sip of water from a rusty water fountain, and anyone knew the best thing to do with that was to just swallow and pretend it never happened.

She gazed up and saw a rusty weather vane blowing and creaking in the wind. That's what it tasted like; like kissing a rusty weather vane. The contraption was shaped like a horse with only three legs; one leg, the one probably cast up into the breeze like a trotting position, must have been blown off in some wind storm. The rust crept up the rear of the horse, covering its tail and only slightly staining the mane. The sound it made was something like a banshee's wail, only softer and more melodious now that the wind's direction changed. And something must have weighed down something in its mechanics, because now it only swayed back and forth in the breeze, a steady breeze that couldn't force it all the way around. The creak reminded her of a rocking chair, her mother's rocking chair, and she pictured her mother sitting there, bidding her daughter for a little kiss before bed, and she recalled the taste of lipstick on her lips and then against her tongue. She couldn't help but smile, though the orange rust on the browned weather vane quickly wiped the smile from her face as she realized the symbol of decay this old rusted weather vane represented.

A new picture formed in her memory: a child with angel's wings. The feathers were from an old goose not long prior cooked and eaten for a Thanksgiving dinner, and the down-covered wings were a Christmas gift. It snowed that winter, and the little girl with wings ran with the farm geese in and out of the barn, and let her wings get lifted up rapturously in the breeze as the weather vane turned in an easterly direction. The feathers were white, down feathers, good for stuffing a pillow or quilt, but Pa had saved them especially for her because he always called her his little angel and she'd said not long before Thanksgiving, "But, Pa, don't angels got wings?" That was many winters ago, and now this place had fallen into its own winter. The rusty weather vane squealed against the sudden roughly changing wind, and she licked her lips once more, the taste of chalk and spoiled grapes and snow coming together in a wad of spit she let fly against a slab of wood once belonging to a solid fence. And reaching out to touch another broken slab she recalled Ma's rocking chair and singing soft songs on Sunday evenings, and wished she was there for a kiss goodnight.