SkippingAuthor(s): Diane WilliamsSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Summer - Fall, 1997), p. 70Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20154428 .

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Diane Williams

Skipping

With his wife and his child he had been summoned to come forward

to this moment inside of the shop. The husband said, "Take that one."

The wife put a pair of glass frames on. She waited for her love of

the glass frames to reveal itself.

The child dropped its toy. The wife began to feel hatred for her

child.

"Please help me out," the wife said.

The husband said, "Take off that one."

The optician said, "Aah."

Someone else's child left the optician's shop. "Is there a bathroom I can use here?" the wife asked.

The optician smiled. He said, "No."

Inside the bathroom there is a quiet vase of roses. A dish, a piece of

soap in there, both skip like rams.

The child fell to the floor.

It spent much of its time for any reason.

"You! You ought to pick it up," the wife said to the husband, refer

ring to the child.

"He fell!" the husband said.

"You couldn't reach it if you tried," the wife said.

70

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