The Speed of Skin by Katie Vagnino

Raw Bar Amid the lemon crescents and crushed ice, a dozen Duxbury oysters, still alive – I pry them from their shells, dollop twice with mignonette, and swallow. After five I’m almost full, salt stinging my lips, till a sip of water brings my hunger back; armed with my tiny fork, I make the kill, spilling brine like blood. They taste metallic, oceanic coins harvested in steel cages alongside their mussel and clam cousins. What, if anything, do they feel when cracked open by a sous chef’s hands, arranged by size on a plate, left to right, sliding down my throat without a fight?

Pictures of Floods I have always been drawn to them â&#x20AC;&#x201C; water innocently intruding, boulevards reborn as harbors dotted with streetlight buoys, abandoned storefronts now exotic ports-of-call. The sun-shriveled man stranded on a roof â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is he contemplating the irony of his thirst? The aerial shot was taken by someone in a helicopter hopefully coming to his rescue. A red flip flop caught in the branches of a fallen tree looks as noble as the submerged stop sign, still brashly insistent, the water too busy drowning everything to listen.

Let’s Argue About Art All good art is an indiscretion. – Tennessee Williams

1. A urinal hangs petulantly at MoMA – Duchamp’s porcelain protest against the intelligentsia, men in bowlers with their handsome wives who chew their thumbnails, nod along as the docent mumbles something profoundly mundane or mundanely profound. 2. Cage’s symphony of silence wasn’t a symphony until hundreds paid their hard-earned hundreds to see a world-famous London conductor command his stopwatch. The gentleman in seat C3 sneezed brilliantly during the second movement; Cage himself shook his hand. 3. The latest self-proclaimed auteur from NYU has a film in the festival circuit rumored to be unwatchable. “Brutally real…a wet dream of violence that captures the essence of the way we live now,” said one critic who left after the opening credits. 4. The crackhead on the corner hands out postcards for his one-man show, his poverty mistaken for performance art: “The world’s one big motherfucking stage,” he says, twitching, his crooked smile like something Picasso might have painted.

Souvenir We went to the gift shop for an artifact, something to remind us of the afternoon – African masks and Post-Impressionists, the sleeping guard who snapped awake when my laugh cut through the refrigerated air, the old German couple trading sips from a mug in the café. Among the charming, useless keepsakes (Faberge egg-shaped soaps, postcards too pretty to be sent, a book on the history of buttonholing) you told me that “souvenir” comes from the French irregular verb: to remember. “I didn’t know you spoke French,” I said. We left without buying anything. Now I souvenir your cleft chin, your fear of food expiration dates, the skyline created by books piled on your bedroom floor, waltzing in my kitchen on New Year’s Eve across the wine glasses we broke. I souvenir how abruptly we became unnecessary to each other, like the bronze paperweight in the shape of Degas’s ballerina you told me not to waste my money on.

Cook Until Done for my parents, who met in an adult class called “Cooking for Singles.”

On the first day, they made consommé. The way his hands cracked the eggs, whipped their whites into a frenzy stirred something forgotten inside her. The way his hands cracked the eggs made her wonder how he’d handle her; something forgotten stirred inside when he finally asked her for a date. He wondered how she’d handle herself when he ordered Chianti at dinner. On the date, he asked all the usual things, noticed her eyes were hazel like his. He ordered more Chianti at dinner when she said their matching initials were a sign. She noticed his eyes were hazel like hers; he stroked her hand, offered to drive her home. Matching initials must be a sign, she said, picturing pairs of monogrammed towels. He stroked her hand, invited her to his home. Eight months later she was still there, picturing pairs of monogrammed towels. Watching him was like waiting for water to boil. Eight months later she was still there without a ring, not getting any younger, but a watched pot never boils. At last she proposed an ultimatum: “I need a ring. I’m not getting any younger.” That September, he caved in at last to her ultimatum: a proposal to consummate their love in marriage. One day eighteen Septembers later, it all caved in – both were whipped, but the frenzy was gone.

Ricochet The back-glass reflects his pock-marked face, brown eyes narrowed as his hips jerk back and forth, bump against the metal edges. Wrists tense, he propels the magnetic ball right right left right away from the underbelly of the machine. It only takes a moment of distraction – bartender breaks a glass, or the jukebox skips – Game Over. Bonus round – a silver second chance. He pulls the plunger back, leans in, releases years of pent-up wants (his own place, a girlfriend, some goddamn respect) yes yes no yes how everything feels spring-loaded. The way he plays, you’d think he’d never seen words bounce off someone uselessly,

like he hasn’t yet learned the slam-tilt of experience has nothing to do with the score.

In My Twenties I thought every song was about me I loved with a toddler’s ferocity I bought too many shoes, not enough socks I decided it was okay to say “fuck” to my mom I fantasized about my funeral, pictured my friends in tasteful black I lamented not being a wunderkind I tore apart my cuticles like they were hiding something I wished everything could heal at the speed of skin I took too many taxis I considered law school I dated online I avoided the dentist and doing laundry I looked forward to haircuts I idolized Joan Didion and Scarlett O’Hara I carried no cash I flirted with men I had no interest in I pretended to practice yoga I bartended I voted Democrat I lost things all the time I collected family recipes I used words like “heteronormative” and “pedagogy” I wanted to look my age I claimed not to believe in God I didn’t drink enough water I kept a dream journal I researched selling my eggs I experimented with cocaine I was a bridesmaid I tipped generously I slept too much I felt lucky to be young and not fat I wanted to get into a bar fight, have my face slapped by a stranger I think I could have used a good slap when I was in my twenties

Learning Curve I don’t remember learning how to wrap a gift, who taught me with steady hands to coil the string around my fingers, curl the ends. Tying shoelaces I’ll credit to Dad, along with telling time and jokes, balancing a checkbook, chopping onions without crying. In fifth grade, Val showed me how to run a razor over my legs, warned Watch out around the ankles. French kissing: the honor goes to a wiry boy whose name was James (or John?) who slid his timid tongue across my gums, placed his hand on my hairless knee. You can break a promise and be forgiven I learned from my mother, as well as how to flirt while knotting a necktie around your lover’s throat. I picked up lying on my own, first small things like I’ve never felt this way before, then bigger, hungrier untruths: this glass will be my last; sex means nothing; everything happens for a reason.

Slut Villanelle Moving from one man’s bed to another’s, she reapplies lipstick, lets herself out the back door. She spreads her legs hoping someone will love her so she can say I told you so to her mother, who doesn’t return her calls anymore, angry she stole a friend’s husband, then another’s. Like wasps at a picnic, men at the bar hover. She’s done the rum-coke-and-fuck routine before, spreading her legs, hoping someone will love her. Maybe he’s here tonight for her to discover. Swaying her hips to the beat on the dance floor, she moves from one man’s arms to another’s until dizzy, she collapses on a stool to recover. No one offers water; the waitress mutters whore. She crosses her legs, pictures her ideal lover – he won’t judge her for giving her body to others. Her mother said Always leave them wanting more. Moving from one man’s bed to another’s, she spreads her legs. Someone will love her.

Shoot the Freak You went to Coney Island to get a tattoo, stopped in the freak show first. Lobster Boy pretended to cry and Rubber Lady stifled a sigh as she wrapped a fishnetted leg around her neck. “My dear, we must watch and pray,” a bum on the boardwalk said. He asked your name; you gave him a quarter. Perhaps if the line had been shorter, you would have ridden the Cyclone, but probably not. The fat psychic with psoriasis yawned and rubbed her belly chakra. From you, she requested a cigarette, said she hadn’t had her dinner yet. She read your palms like tea leaves, free of charge, almost. Who has time for the Wonder Wheel, you wondered as you walked by. When it gets stuck, the operator stares fish-mouthed at the dangling pairs who continue to grope, unaware the wheel has stopped. Under gauze, the skin is already healing as blood commingles with black ink. Soon you’ll parade your beauty like the rest, each stare an arrow on your bull’s-eyed chest. No one will mistake what you are: a walking human target.

Myrtle Beach On a quest for Mom’s cigs, my sister cruises down Hwy 17 with a low left tire, swats my hand if I try to change the station. We lurch into a 24-hour Shell station and the pump boy’s eyes cruise over her suntanned skin, the sweat collecting on her collarbone. I swat flies, arch my back against our station wagon, beg her to buy me a Grape Crush. As we pull out of the station, I lick droplets of sweat off the cold purple can. We cruise back to the motel; the cable station plays reruns of the cop show, S.W.A.T. Once I rode in a police cruiser Mom slurs, fanning herself as if on a cruise or tired from making small talk at a State Dinner. She looks regal lighting up, sweating makeup into her spiked sweet tea. My sister says It wasn’t a cruiser. She remembers that night at the station, dragging Mom back to the car, the crushed look on my face as we left the station, cheeks flushed with shame and sweat.

Conversation Between Two People Who Considered Becoming Lovers Too bad, said he I know, said she When I first saw you I’d fit nicely in the hull I wanted to skyscrape you of your hairless chest scale your freckled flesh (it is hairless, isn’t it?) run my tongue behind You remind me of your knees, my thumbs the threadbare rabbit I slept with over your eyelids, nostrils as a child, he had buttons the bleached hairs above for a mouth your upper lip Did you know I have a birthmark We can still be friends shaped like a crayon? the kind that kiss when drunk It might turn you off and laugh about it later Besides, you’d probably hate You’re probably not into biting my cat, no offense but so I’ll try not to think you don’t seem like an animal about your nipples person. I think This still can work out if we both commit if we want it to, we can put all this behind us Right?

Single Women at Thirty after Donald Justice

Single women at thirty no longer shave daily legs they know won’t be mistaken for a cheerleader’s. Over glasses of rosé, they laugh about hometown beaus they’ve escaped, co-workers who can’t stop e-mailing pictures of their potato-shaped babies. Staring at their reflections in the window of Williams-Sonoma, they brood over cheese knives, which are not something you buy but something you register for. Their grey hairs are errant and few; their veins aren’t varicose yet. Still, they give up their seats on the bus for the older women, some part of them knowing eventually they’ll trade in their stilettos for something more practical.

Paper Cut Thumbing through old letters I cut myself carelessly, on the corner of your name signed in haste, blue ink thinning where your hand fluttered from the page to answer a ringing phone, or turn off the tea kettle, perhaps. Crease of red on my throbbing finger, finger to mouth, my mouth and yours, the shortest distance between our two points. If only you could see my X-ray, glorious reduction into black and white. If a cut like this appeared at all, would it look like a slit of light, or an unexpected flaw, the last detail you overlooked?

The Burning of Louvain At Louvain it was war upon the defenseless, war upon churches, colleges, shops of milliners and lacemakers; war brought to the bedside and fireside; against women harvesting in fields, against children in wooden shoes at play in the streets. – Richard Harding Davis, reporting for the New York Tribune, August 31, 1914

The pear trees facing south on the hill by the Jesuit chapel were the first to go. Still, we prayed the Germans would leave, thought the fire would appease them, but they caught fifty men, and in front of their wives, in the scorched lobby of what had been the Hotel de Ville, shot them. We found their bodies days after the sound of gun blasts stopped. It was a joke, the charges against us, but no one spoke out as the raids began. Perhaps the absurdity of it united us, erased any former jealousy we felt toward a neighbor’s farm, now burnt to the ground. No harm will come to those who cooperate here, the soldiers said, soot on their hands. Fear nothing. The fire did not discriminate – we all choked on smoke, watched our ceilings fall, curtains, dishes, photographs, toys, furniture, all reduced to rubble in a few hours. We were struck dumb seeing the places we’d grown up in ablaze. We learned everything you own can burn. The headlines read Such a Senseless Tragedy. There wasn’t much else to write, except that God betrayed us that windless August night, turned away from the blazing rooftops. Our children need to know when there is nothing left to feed on but hate, you get wilderness in disguise, dressed up as war. It is useless to despise the person who lit the first match; best to be capable of more than your enemies guess.

The bronze statue of Father Damien that stood behind the Church of St. Pierre is gone for good, as is the library and the orchard where we went to hide when the troops arrived. The settlement at warâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end makes no mention of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s left of Louvain; what the Germans took was petty theft. Our city extinguished easily, an altar candle blown out. Stories of what was lost are all we own.

Your Dreams Explained Rotting teeth mean money troubles, molars loose in the mouth like coins rattling in a car cup-holder, never enough for the toll. If you dream of being a fish, a trout, say, swimming upstream, you might be anxious about work or the fact that your wife’s skin suddenly reminds you of scales; you catch yourself wondering how she’d look hooked at the gums. Waking up wet with visions of Ted from next door means you’d like to have sex with Ted from next door. Vegetables represent repressed anger toward your mother, who’s to blame for your cauliflower complexion, your irrational fear of cooked fruit. Flying: a sign of a lover’s betrayal. You are gravity, abandoned.

Golf Mill Ford Hair shellacked and impervious as the Fords they sell, they prowl around the entrance like feral cats in heat, sizing up shoppers by aftershaves, regional accents, whether they brought their spouses. A thin sheet of glass divides them from the trade-ins on the lot that bake in the sun, some not much more than a key and a heater, junkers hiding under fresh coats of paint, warrantied, air-bagged, dying to be a sixteen-year-oldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first. Every day at four p.m., a tinny jingle announces the arrival of Mister Softee: Commissions forgotten, the men line up by the ice cream truck like schoolboys, count their change carefully. Now they are furrowed-brow buyers who donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to be rushed as they agonize over colors and prices, afraid of making a hasty decision.

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Dead Dog I was 11, 77 in dog years, riding the bus to school in Mobile, backpack on my lap. Jimmy, the class tattle, saw it first: a mess of slick black fur and bones, blood on the road. “Dead dog!” he hollered. We all got up to look, craned our necks, stepped on each other’s toes, everyone desperate to see and have a story for the kids who lived close enough to walk. Horse flies haloing its head, I could see the crows had already had their fill. “Ya’ll sit back down,” the driver bellowed but we ignored him, stayed out of our seats till we’d rounded the next corner. I was glad for once that the bus windows didn’t open; I didn’t want to smell him. “Poor thing,” my mom said while braiding my hair that night. Whether she meant me or the dog, I didn’t ask.

Wunderkind At his first lesson, the teacher nearly wept, clutched the child as if he were a winning lottery ticket. From that day on, he kept playing; everyone agreed it was the beginning of a great career. After concerts, he would rise to greet the hoards of people waiting in line to touch his hands, marvel at their tiny size. His mother said she knew it was a sign when she played Bach or Mozart, he’d kick inside. Flashbulbs popped; the boy smiled, posed for photos, even when he was sick of hearing strangers say they’d driven for miles. On their programs, he always wrote the same: God bless you for listening and then his name. When adolescence came, he practiced less, found other uses for his nimble fingers. Arpeggios became labored; bass clefs mocked him with smirks. He’d linger after school to avoid going home where his mother waited, sheet music in her hands. Exasperated, one day she spat How dare you waste your gift. She could not understand his need to be normal, someone’s prom date, someone’s friend. After college, he took a job behind a desk, moved to a town in another state. Does he miss recital halls or the adoring mob? Only when colleagues stop by his cube to ask Hey! Where’d you learn to type like that?

On the Rocks Saturated with stories of men who sit hunched in silence, the bar stools glow from the hanging lights, orange-red, like lipsticked lips just kissed. My phone bill was nothing this month; I drink a toast to unmade calls from a tumbler, no ice. The alarm went off at seven-thirty this morning as it has for the past month, an hour too early. I can’t figure out how to reset it. Seven-thirty, when you would curl up under the covers before venturing out onto the cold bathroom tile. I have no hangers in my closet; they left with you without even hearing my side of it. I fell asleep on the heap of pants and shirts, woke up with the print of that tie you hated embossed on my cheek. Haven’t shaved since. I stand and toss a twenty at the bartender, his pink shirt overrun with thin palm trees. “Your wife buy you that shirt?” I ask and he just smiles. “See you tomorrow?” He nods. In five and a half hours, the alarm goes off again.

Bank Robberies on Par for December* Darling, I had the ski mask and blow torch ready but unfortunately, bank robberies are on par for December. Tis’ the season of giving and stealing, apparently. My knowledge of the vault code, my careful seduction of the head guard – useless now that the anticipated number of banks have been burgled this month. Let’s cross our fingers that in January the statistics will be more in our favor and our caper will fall within the quota. We can wait another month to be smug millionaires, can’t we? That account in the Caymans isn’t going anywhere. Still, robbing a bank in December had a certain poetry to it and your suggestion that I sing “Jingle Bells” while terrorizing the regional manager at gunpoint is inspired. *headline from a Boston newspaper

Still Life We fall into each other like swirls of paint colliding on paper. The canvas of your body I color with my own, oil from my lips staining your chin, your cheek. Brush strokes from your lashes – I inhale sharply – the pillowcases shimmer like twin moons. Summer collapses into autumn and the moon lingers longer each night, painting scenes of winter in our minds, sharpening the need to keep heat in our bodies. We sit on the porch, the wind stroking us like reeds in a creek bed. Anxiety stains my dreams, memories of old loves stain yours and we reflect our pain like moons, instinctually. Every day at the stroke of six, we drink a toast and paint a future together, but we feel like bodies of water separated by desert, sharp thirst clenching our throats, sharper than silence. Once I asked why tears “stain” a face or a pillow. We were in bed, our bodies huddled together, the hangnail moon barely visible through the blinds. “Paint stains, but tears are just water.” You stroked my hair, told me not to worry (stroking my hair was your way to quiet my sharp tongue). The side of the house you painted the year the cicadas came is now stained with rain and covered in craters like the moon. I watched you that day, how your body arched to meet the wood. Your body – I think about it sometimes, imagine stroking your hand with mine as I stare at the moon. You've been gone a year, but the ache is sharp each morning when I see the sky stained with another day, the rot infecting the paint

on the side of the house where your body cut a sharp shadow. I wanted to stroke your paintstained back, on your skin trace little moons.

Ode to Virtues Patience is a girl with pigtails you hated back in high school, always asking questions when you couldn’t wait for the bell to ring. Honesty, a policy discontinued the night you missed curfew by two hours, had to hide the hickey by wearing a turtleneck in July, which came in handy when that fat nun, Prudence, would whack the back of your neck for no reason. Charity calls up empty collection baskets, a woman gray-gummed, extending her cup, eyes closed so she won’t see you pretending to pat your pockets for change. Hope is a dodo bird with claws, not feathers. She squawks in your ear: he’s in a better place now then flutters away to enable Faith, who’s blind, artificial as freeze-dried ice cream made for astronauts. Good ol’ Chastity – wasn’t she that stripper who used to dance out by the airport?

May Day On the first Friday in May, seniors at Mary Institute are dismissed at noon to don debutante dresses, ivory tulle and lace confections that billow out below their hips. Crinoline rustles as they parade like premature brides across the trimmed lawn, tallest to shortest. In pairs, they curtsy to the crowd. A Copland song begins the dance: ribbons in, ribbons out, dozens of Penelopes weaving and unweaving, until the circle tightens, the maypole tautly braided in pastel satin. One will be crowned Queen, handed a bouquet of babyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s breath and roses while the others hide their heartbreak. The sophomores smirk and look for stumbles, gossip about who should not be wearing white. Fathers in pleated khakis take too many photos, or not enough. The mothers clap the hardest; they remember the ritual, how it felt to be on the cusp of blooming and believe there would never be a shortage of parties, doting suitors, perfect summers.

Riptide The ocean is alive, you said; I thought it was the joint talking. But watching waves breaking faster and farther, taking back the beach one footprint at a time, I began to see your point. If it is cruel, it must be living, I thought but didn't say aloud. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all broken, you said, laughing as I showed you my shell collection: Fragments of conch, horseshoe crab, well-worn shards and half spirals, evidence of what time tried to erode. Nothing was whole but that was the point â&#x20AC;&#x201C; I have no use for intact things. When I leave, I will be like the current when it recedes, nothing in its wake.

Paris You laid there, still, heard it all unfold in the tomb where your lover and I mourned. Did my death make your wanton blood run cold? Beneath your balcony, his voice grew bold comparing you to the sun in verse worn while I hid in shadows, heard it all unfold. You promised to another what your father sold to me. He was your rose, and I, the thorn wishing him dead that night in the cold. Your death no one could have foretold â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from your bedside, I refused to be torn. Still, you laid there and heard it all unfold: hysterical fits, funereal plans, the old priest giving the eulogy. I was forlorn; Cousin, your death made my blood run cold. Yet in the crypt, before the death mold could freeze your face, I could have sworn I saw you smile. Did you hear it all unfold? Your hand was worth more to me than gold but for my offer, you showed only scorn. You laid there, still, heard it all unfold â&#x20AC;&#x201C; did my death make your wanton blood run cold?

Oxford, Mississippi based on characters from William Faulknerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Sound and the Fury

Crawling under fences, scaling sycamores, I remember your freckles browning in the August heat and your smell: mint mixed with sweat and honeysuckle. The sun smoldered, cigar tip in the sky, as we walked beside the stream marveling at its opacity of dragonflies, cattails, tin cans. You had to hold me back; I wanted to sink my head in the silt, swallow the filthy water. Summer nights spent fumbling on roofs, first with you, then with other boys I kissed till my lips blistered. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d stay up there and wait for morning to ignite the horizon in shocks of pink and grey. Once I came home late and found you pacing my porch, too angry to speak. You looked at me like you did the day we climbed the dead willow out back; you cried for my ruined white dress, the mud in my hair.

Lost and Found My mother lost her virginity at fourteen – she told me when I was that age, left nothing out: the pull-out couch, parents at a movie, how she barely bled. My father waited till college, waited for his high school girlfriend, home on a winter break, to whisper “Yes, I’m ready” and maybe “I love you” and probably she did. They were not terribly young. They didn’t use protection. As for my first time, you’ve never asked how old I was, whether I was driven by love or lust or just curiosity. I would tell you it was unremarkable except for my mother’s reaction when I told her – she laughed and said about time.

Poetry Workshop I’m sorry, but I don’t get it: Is the moon a symbol for something? The voice is all wrong, sounds stilted – I’d cut the last ten lines. Maybe the moon could symbolize The speaker’s longing for her father. The last ten lines are really working But the first five stanzas fall flat. Why does the speaker long for her father? Couldn’t this be a love poem instead? The first five stanzas make me think You were trying to write a sestina. The title should just be “Love Poem.” It’s clichéd, but in an ironic way. No one writes sestinas anymore Because no one wants to read them. The irony of clichés is that often They say exactly what you want to say. No one wants to read poems That are too self-consciously clever. What exactly do you want to say In the poem? Am I supposed to feel alienated? I love how cleverly self-conscious The line breaks are – how the white space In the poem makes you feel alienated. The stilted voice is so wrong, it’s right, you know? The line breaks, the white space – God, I totally get it now.

Bad Mothers Every day I see them on the subway overwhelmed, screeching their daughters’ names: Kimmy! Kimmy, you put your butt in that seat right now or else. My mother taught me it’s not polite to stare so I pretend I don’t hear their voices squealing like metal crushing in a car wreck, don’t see the chipped nails clutching the napes of their kids’ necks. The smell seeps into the train car before the dark stain spreads across her little corduroys. Damn it, Kimmy, those pants are brand new. I hear the slap without seeing it and the wail that comes after – the unmistakable sound of an animal in pain.

Mimesis You pantomime making breakfast while I do my best impression of a wife who likes her husband’s coffee. Without conflict – A wants something from B, B wants something from A – there is no drama. Either Aristotle or our therapist said that. Is my Tuesday line “Have a good day at work?” Or “Don’t forget the dry cleaning?” I can’t remember, so instead I cross upstage, ask you to take the dog we don’t have for a long walk. You adlib a kiss on my cheek and ask about dinner; I hand you a wax banana from the centerpiece. This scene was written only for two people so we don’t mention the character who never arrived, the room you painted robin’s egg blue, the hand-me-downs from your sister that I failed to grow into. Tomorrow I’ll think less about that room, those dresses. Tomorrow I’ll try harder to stick to the script.

Internet Date I’ve had more fun at the dentist, she thought as he told another tasteless joke. Watching plays that have no plot I’ve had more fun. At the dentist, she thought, at least they numb you up. I can’t believe he brought carnations. “Join me outside for a smoke?” I’ve had more fun at the dentist, she thought as he told another tasteless joke.

Mr. Right He stares at me across the train: Tattooed neck, arms thick like branches sick with a perennial disease, ponytailed hair, toothpick in mouth, gym bag. His grey sweatpants barely contain him. It’s hard to believe he has chromosomes in common with the men I date, writers, musicians, gentle men too polite to call me by my proper names: Princess, Sometimes-Bitch. His thumb’s calloused. I wonder how it might feel between my teeth, his giant grizzly face burrowed in my armpit, me pinned against the graffitied wall of a bar bathroom stall till someone tells the bouncer who yells at us to get a room, kicks us out like the trash we are. He’d slap my ass on the way home, and we’d laugh about it over a cold one on my couch. He gets off, lumbers away slowly, leaving me still trying to decipher the message on his neck.

Vera and the Butterflies The eastern side of every minute of mine is already colored by the light of our impending meeting. All the rest is dark, boring, you-less. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Vladimir Nabokov to his wife Vera, 1937

She had already lost him and now his winged darlings were hers to keep or kill. She shared his fascination with fragility and flight, but walking in the woods alone, armed with the net he had given her, noting each abandoned chrysalis, unusual flecks of blue on a Parnassius apollo, she knew they had to go. A book suggested pinching thorax between thumb and middle finger to snap the exoskeleton for a quick death, but she couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t bear their blood on her hands. Suffocation in a kill jar â&#x20AC;&#x201C; too inhumane. She decided finally to freeze them, let the air do her dirty work. Watching their wings pulse to stillness, she imagined his delight at the sudden flutter of company, diaphanous prologue to their reunion.

How to Explain Death to Your Daughter Don’t wait till the dog’s on his last legs or Nana suffers another stroke – No, tell her on a cloudless afternoon, maybe a Sunday in November after the leaves have fallen but before the first snow, or during spring’s first inkling before the birds are back. You could tell her at bedtime, perhaps liken it to a long sleep. Remember what you are going to say sounds impossible, that someday she and you and the lilies in the backyard and Anna next door and even Dad will be gone. At home or in a hospital – there is no way to know where or how or when. She will probably ask why the world can’t hold us all forever, or if it hurts when it happens: is it like when you fall off a swing, get the wind knocked out of you? You won’t have the answers, so touch the top of her perfect head and smile to show her you believe death is a necessary, natural process like sugar dissolving in a glass of lemonade, leaving its essence to linger.

Nor’easter Caught in the maw of it, it’s easy to believe in God’s opposite: an absence of tenderness, logic, fury whistling like a thousand tin cans dragged from a fleet of wedding hearses, rice in the tire ruts. Hail hat-taps at my windows like hard confetti; snow falls, a silent apology. No stars; they’ve been upstaged by clouds. Behind one there’s a sullen glow where the diva moon is trying to shine. Nights like this I dream I am lightning, or a cigarette lit too long. My body is a lighthouse, beacon made of bone.

Simple Procedure Is someone coming to get you? they ask as I fill out my medical history, decline the optional counseling. They take some blood to be sure I’m far enough along and tell me I have a choice: Local or general. They recommend general but I want to be awake. The bulletin board in the waiting room is covered in handwritten missives – prayers and apologies, solemn vows not to return, requests for forgiveness from mothers, husbands, boyfriends, Jesus. I change my mind and ask to be knocked out. When I wake up with a pad between my legs, I remember the first time I bled, how proud my mother was. Is it normal to feel numb? The nurse nods, hands me a lollipop – For your blood sugar, honey. Down the hall a girl cradles a pay phone, rubs her eyes raw. Can you come get me? she asks.

Hemingway Had Cats “But Hemingway had cats, didn’t he?” she asks rhetorically, the kitten in her arms looking at him half in terror, half in love. Looking into its cobalt eyes smaller than dimes, he knows its nine lives will outlast their relationship the same way he knows a goddamn pet won’t cure his writer’s block. Two weeks ago over vegan risotto, he’d told her in no uncertain terms that a cat would be the end of them so he suggests they name it that: The End. So they do, and four months later, it does.

Lineage for the Grayson women

In Aunt Susie’s kitchen, three women flutter like agitated moths, discussing movies and weather but never men or politics. Armed with a bottle of Tabasco and wearing a shirt that says “Gravity’s a Bitch,” Susie assaults the slow-cooking brisket. Her red nails match mine and my mom can’t help but wonder if we planned it that way. Hungry, I wonder if we’ll eat before 10:00, if the flakes fluttering down will continue through the night. Red Allen croons on the stereo about Stormy Weather. At exactly 8:30, Nana, ninety and reliable as gravity, rises from her nap. “Do we think two bottles will be enough?” my mom asks, a bottle of Bordeaux in her hands. Nana wonders aloud if the store’s even still open; the gravity of the situation sets in. Amidst a flutter of concerns about the inclement weather, I help myself to a generous glass. The red wine warms my mouth, soothing as Red’s voice. Mom signals for me to pass the bottle. Two hours later, they argue over whether I should keep trying to be an actress, while I wonder if I’ll ever learn to cook brisket, if my heart’s flutter is from the wine or the food or the force of gravity in my chest. Such a curious thing, gravity, I think as I watch my mom and her sister wipe red stains from their lips. The snow is no longer a flutter but a full-blown storm. Nothing can stay bottled up forever. “Sometimes I wonder…I wonder…” Nana trails off. I want to ask her whether she believes in second chances, whether she’s afraid of death, of what’s beyond the grave. But I say nothing. Susie laughs, “I wonder if we have room for dessert—I made red velvet cake.” The brisket and both bottles are long gone. In a minute, I will flutter

to the kitchen with empty bottles. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll gripe about gravityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pull on their weathered bodies, discuss books recently read, while I flutter around like a firefly, lit within from wonder.