RADIO WATER   /   Francine Witte

  

 

…you realize how happy you have been all this time not being happy.

 

…He is a lost mountain to me now.

 

…I remember the first time Murphy left. Stayed out for two whole months. Then he admitted he couldn’t find his keys without me.

 

…“The horizon is just an illusion. You can touch it, but it moves further away. Like happiness.”    

 

…Their giggles sailing into the air like missed opportunities.

 

…He’s been busy before, but this time with a smell to it.

 

…He likes to compare everything to animals. Guys at work are a bunch of donkeys. Me, I’m a cute little cat.

And I am. Curled up and patient, like my mother taught me to be. This is what I’m like, she said.

 

…He grabs a dishtowel, wipes the grease off my chin and kisses me down to the floor.

 

…Blood drop after blood drop falling onto the rug.

 

…Black stockings and deception times two.

 

…This is the part where I say it’s okay, it’s okay.

 

…Good days, bad days. It’s still your life. Don’t scrunch up your nose at one part of it.

 

….Finally, you will hold the key up to your heart. Wonder if there’s anything left there to turn. 

 

…Knock up is a harsh term to be sure, but these are harsh boys. They carve their initials into one another’s back for practice.

 

...Dead is older than old.

 

…Now he shows up, all ghosts and out of excuses.

 

…It’s the temperature of your hand when someone has squeezed it and the heat of it is still on yours.

 

…“I can’t fix this if you won’t tell me the truth.”

 

…The truth doesn’t fix anything if it breaks your life.

 

…They wake up to a neighborhood on fire.

 

…life is only really here for a minute or so and it really doesn’t take long.

 

…It’s like he took away the moon.

 

…Me, I became my mama. The bottle full, then empty, then full.

 

…Some nights now, the house is so alone and cold I can hear teardrops from the moon.

 

…Mom says whatever we have for supper, we can pretend it’s something else. 

 

…Mom says casserole is a good way to stretch a food dollar. 

 

…No one blames a bear for being a bear, and so I can’t blame Busby for being Busby.

 

…In the dream, Harry tells her his death is lonely. What with her still alive, able to eat and sleep and breathe. 

 

….How did he miss the commotion, bird squawk and fence rattle?

 

…She had thought of wristslit and pillswallow, but there was something always stopping her, fear kicking in, one last hope kicking in. 

 

…Like angel light, like Sarah tapping on his shoulder.

 

 

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