Washington Theater

Washington Theatre

Three blocks from the mill. Lights down, burgundy velvet curtains opening. The smell 

of popcorn permeating. Father, away in the War. My mother took me to the movies.

We sat in the dark, watching movies I was too young to understand, but, somehow, I did.

Brando in “On the Waterfront,” Rhett, Scarlet, Heathcliff. I sat beside her, picking seeds from a pomegranate. Staining my fingers, soaking it all in. As solemn as Sunday Mass. Mother instilled her love of movies in me. That theatre, old, and in a bad part of town, has survived. Dark, teeming with ghosts.

Sandra Giedeman