The rain abates, the air left dank and sweet with spruce breath. Madid moss in the ditch holds the imprint of hooves. Anne’s finger becomes a baton, tipping its point to each wildflower that she spots. She chants their names, an incantation of gratitude for the end of the rain. Phyl is deaf to this […]
Jazz costumes dangle from the limbs of a crab-apple tree. Fabric of deep indigo and mauve, black tassel belts and silk scarves, May-day ribbons that no children tangle. Below the branches a woman bent over her fence dressed to spread your fortune through a Tarot pattern. Her hands overlap in a Celtic Cross. She hums […]
The olfa butted against your palm unzips a length of carpet. Fibres crack against the steel: vertebrae snapping. Embedding the blade uncovers a memory: an eighth grade dissection, where a scalpel split a frog. But when you slit the belly of the rug, no coiled guts greet you, only the flat scent of clay: an […]
