Cardinal
I made space for the loss by putting away so many others I’d lost count. Most of my friends knew this predicament well. I wasn’t alone in this. I was alone in this. A fairy godmother had told me to hold something back as a secret just for myself. As usual, I took it literally, choosing a locket with no photo inside. At first, I thought I’d fill the cardinal enameled trinket with something—a lock of hair, an image of my love. But the longer I left it empty the less likely it was I’d find just the right thing. I kept thinking, invisible tattoo, boat adrift, permanent roam.
Vignette
She could hear a barcarole as if she were in a new house: someone else’s. Rolls of questions kept coming, sticking to earlier ones, increasing in gravity, unspooling. Where were her poems? The ferry of childhood? What had become of her dead friend’s books—too many to keep track? It wasn’t that she’d died exactly but had to come through: through a co-op and a girls’ bathroom where an old woman made fun of the her. Meanwhile, I could hear my own assassin and realized this was beyond strange. No stupid girl I. Enjoy your life, said the ghost.
My Twenties
I took the roundabout way to get there. Through the swim shop, the old-fashioned ice cream parlor, other women’s kitchens where I brought my own dish. The coast I knew was no longer a coast but a waterway, and this soured the whole affair. I’m not saying I no longer loved you, just that things had become too much: the salty air, the almost constant drenching, your anxious attempts to get me back. We were two sides of the same person. You, me, everyone we knew.
