Photo by Hersh Chauhan on Unsplash
Busy Being Eve
She drowns on the sofa for two weeks. But each day she makes herself rise and wobble to the kitchen for water, a bite of toast. The blistering pain in her pneumonia-filled lungs causes her to grab the counter as if it’s an overturned boat, yet she hangs on, gasping for dear life. Weaving cautiously to the back deck, she scatters birdseed on the railing. During the sleepless nights, she bargains with the universe for faster healing, determined to brighten, re-animate. Then, she reasons, she won’t feel so scared, scarred. Especially after that nightmare in which she floated unobserved, witnessed her prone body in a hospital bed as a Dickens-like specter pointed an accusing finger at her and threatened, “This is the way it will end.” At the beginning of a third week of treatment, the slow, fevered episodes end. The graveled riptide of her breathing eases. Her arms and legs crack thankfully through the blanketed shell of her tangled nest. Emerging clear-eyed from the house, she wanders the backyard, detects that the gold and russet leaves have flown from the frigid air. Yet bare trees—birds—the earth—breathe. All the busyness of being is in motion beneath frosted clouds. And Eve stands watch, fixed to the rhythms surging through her, green again in the pale garden.
Bright Highway
The cursor stops at the last word dropped on the dead-end page, the latest plaything. I’m restless but suspect it’s pretty good practice to rise and listen to the old clock’s patient beat, to climb up from this still chair, to unfold packed away dreams, to look at the bright highway, to make believe in a fresh trail—an open run of dog-legged two lanes to follow, away from any bitter-pill-in-the-peanut-butter people—just me and you, straying along, nipping and howling between rests.
A Sort-of Sonnet to the Night In
You: “What happened to your hair?”
Me: “Something happened to my hair?”
I reach up, pat it, face the screen, listen
as a sexpert on TV intones, “The armpit
is an erogenous zone—your lover should
lick it.” You grimace. I giggle. “At least
there’s a deodorant now that won’t leave
a sticky stripe on your tongue,” I offer. You
pass the dip and inquire, “Have you noticed
this dish has fins? The dish is a fish.” I roll
my eyes. You shrug, “If it wasn’t for one-liners,
I’d have no conversation.” I nod, mouth full,
“Damn those spider monkeys from Mars.”