FLASH
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
Another image rises to us both: A man hunched before a TV, watching historical documentaries, correcting incorrect facts. Rasputin was not a priest, damn it.
I know you shouldn’t keep wild animals as pets, but I’ve had the same spider in my bathroom sink for over two weeks.
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
The weeks go like this: accepting, horny, hopeful, sad. I’m four different people trying to establish one perspective on a major life event – on the creation of life itself.
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
It all started with the curse of my tits. Women’s bodies are cursed. Everyone tries to look at them, everyone tries to ignore them.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.
At twenty, the world is yours because you’re beautiful. But never acknowledge your beauty, or it makes you a bitch.
I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.