Parenting

I learned as a boy of 4 or 5 that bubbles are captivating.
My mother’s washing machine was an ugly green monster

with a wringer atop and lacked all the conveniences that came
along later. Sometimes in summers, I’d stand beside her and

that contraption with its laboring agitator when she loaded the
clothes, the hot water poured in, and she’d put in just a trifle

too much soap. Then came the bubbles cascading above the
racket and gyrating. They climbed all over each other—nestled

and fought—and the big ones that reached the top of the sudsy
mountain, were the brightest and most alluring. There at their

filmy thinnest they adorned themselves in prismatic finery while
I stared at them till they popped, billowing followers fast on their heels!

From Allan Cox’s collection “In the Middle of Time.”

Copyright© 2009-10, all rights reserved.