saartha

It is morning, somehow. Blue wash, gray field. I need to be gone. Instead I sit by the window, thinking of nothing at all. I am watching my mother. Outside she reaches high, picking apples. She is not Eve. She is not even the snake. O God, she gives freely to her sheep. I don’t know why she does this at seven o’clock, still in pajamas-- voluntarily, as though the dew doesn’t seep in right to the bone— but the sheep have gathered, lining up at the fence for their treat. Really, I do need to be gone, but I watch her lob the apples wide into the field, making sure everyone gets at least one.

Tonight he has tweaked his back, and tweaked the tweak. Still he hauls the garbage can onto his big truck alone, tells me it wouldn't do if I got hurt, tells me to have a brownie and relax. How can I relax? Twenty years ago, fried chicken and salt, and the window open to the rain-damp hillside, April air flowing in like a benediction, coyotes singing in the distance and I was almost too old for it, but curled to wedge in the crook of his side there on the couch, the quiet TV blur, yes even then even then I needed it to go on forever.

No such thing as dying well or badly, only time licking its thumb smudging the dirt away the best outcome, you understand, the absolute best is for every child to watch her parents die Love is a hunger. Grit your teeth through it.

It was not worth it, the fuss to find parking for the little park There were daffodils, I suppose, a bench still April-damp, drips of light as though from a leaky roof the flat blaring note next door some poor kid’s first go on the music shop rent-a-trumpet Everything leaks, I can’t cup my hands any tighter Yesterday I read twenty-seven mediocre poems, read them out loud because you have to perform, even in an empty park, even in an empty room you have to blow the trumpet you have to float face-down in it A human is the universe knowing itself, but I don’t understand I don’t understand anything at all and I’m biting my tongue and I’m biding my time and for fucking what The bench wets down the back of my dress. I don’t stay long.

This is an entry to the All Hallows contest, entries due October 25th. Please see the description for a link if you want to join in! “You mean it’s out of stock,” Sybil assured herself. The apothecary glowered—it was a bit difficult to tell, as her face was always some level of dour, but after many years of shopping here, Sybil was used to it. “Woulda said that,” she said firmly, “If I meant it.” “I need that lizard.” “And I said, you ain’t getting that lizard. My supplier says his supplier says there was a law passed, and now anolis carolinesis is on the endangered list. Probably on account of all you two-bit witches using so damn many of them for whatever-the-hell.” In the corner, a small dust bunny stirred up, looked around, and collapsed again. Sybil liked this shop. Sufficiently grimy and vaguely threatening with all the taxidermy. Ingredients from the fancy shops uptown never behaved right—too fussy, not willing to put in the elbow grease and really get the spell going.

In the dark, the field is a pale, pale sea I lift my hair, let the moon wash cool over the scalp Even like this, I am recognizable, like a moth not quite seen, vision snagging and passing nearly over though I move out of myself like fog like a bit of sugar dissolving into the vastness Later I eat a peach in the loudness of the empty room thinking: ah, so this is what life is for.

I chewed myself like an old bone with the breaking of dawn there was nothing left had to be my own burning bush had to make the world from scratch took longer than seven days made monsters, angels, too but the dawn broke it all, again, the great wash of photons flooding merciless over everything I convinced myself to love you have to understand I was in need and the universe is just matter pushing away from itself Built up the levees, took what I could. Called it purpose.

Even what I love I do not love, the half-life of affection a sharp, cold breath like waking up to the year’s first frost, knowing something has changed, something has finished irrevocable and painful, clinging tooth and nail to a perfectly smooth surface I fall away there is a space between myself and myself one clinging one standing up, brushing off the dust of everything.

Countries, cultures, I sampled them the way a child eyes her vegetables nothing changed, I could not come to terms with the hard, unpleasant reality of others I must be terrible to look at you and see no value, no bright spark of humanity, a lighthouse wheeling its light about to an empty sea this arrogance this selfishness, I cannot seem to help it, worn and exhausted with trying when I look at a man I see a dream of a man, a metaphor that doesn’t quite fit, I cannot believe the fact of him to have at my side this golem, this dull unreal thing I cringe away from it, I wrench violently away, turn the light off, climb down from the lighthouse, become the shore and the sea and the crashing ship.

Like a hand not quite touching a hand Like not touching a hand and realizing you do not know the definition of a hand its delineation the difference between a hand and the air between the hands realizing: I knew you once; now the air is untouchable, uncrossable