I saunter slowly through the aisles of annuals and poppies, past flowering cacti and tiny Christmas trees following Michaelene in the Lowe’s Garden Center on a Friday night. It’s already dark, the cold wind swimming. Michaelene reaches an arm, long and slender, to touch the needly leaves.
“I want a live one,” she says. “Not one that’s dead.”
I follow her through the shadows, the unlit areas …
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I knew you were drunk last night. Not by the smell as much as the three times you called me beautiful. By the talk of babies and wishes to give me what I want. By the pink cheeks and the newly brushed teeth and the desire to be near me. By the closeness of your body against mine without being inside it.
And you insisted on …
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I.
That winter, I took up writing in an attempt to forget the countryside. My first play, carefully parsed out into eight acts, took place in a forest glittering with fresh sleet. The foliage dead beneath its luminous exterior. Faint music, then a long silence. Ophelia appears beneath a broken branch, seated on a tree halved by the storm. Her dress is ruined. Still, she looks …
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