The usual definition of fun is:
quite comfortable when they are.
—John Ashbery
Where there is food to be had
there is food to be eaten, di-
gested, bowed down to with
smallish scythe. It is possible
that seeds or seedlings dropped
accidentally between the front
door and the kitchen might take
hold and root within this home
of solitude, where once the tears
of heartache or tears of laughter
from the children, the mother,
the decades-gone father might
have made it seem as if the
Great Power brought life a-
fresh into this dank abode.
Life can get lost. What of
the aftermath of such a loss.
Depending on the loss, she
mutters as she sinks deeply
into the cupboard to pull out
a forgotten biscuit stick. The
jackpot of the year, she goes
on about the unopened crack-
ers. Salt on the wound. Salt
on the sea. Salt on the chops
and, if lucky, a winter cube
for the battle-ax, dry of but
a trickle of milk for over a
year now, which she still
sees through her cataracts
as The Heifer, a gift from
a long-gone pastor of a
now non-existent church
(unless the husks of corn
steaming through a long-
forgotten purgatory be a
congregation; an existence
in search of the next set of
poor souls that trudge through
the hollow and ascend onto
this lost stretch of flat, ex-
pansive scalp of land,
with its thinning, dun-
colored, gently-swaying,
uncut stubble). That hag
of a heifer who’d given
but that trickle for over a
year now. Ah, but she had
her golden years—her udder
swollen, butter and milk
for the ages—even a few
delicate cheeses, she al-
most grins, almost cries,
her five grown children
(there were two addition-
al that were still-born
and one dead of the can-
cer, not even a toddler)
now somewhere out
on the Great Frontier:
for gold, for dreams of
a less dank existence,
for anything but this.
She looks askance toward
the bolted door, never
knowing anything but
the dank and, there-
fore, knowing nothing
of dank, the odor of its
mildew and mold a sour
luster with which she has
aways inhabited without
judgment. She walks the
distance between kitchen
and door, toenails hitting
the dirt floor of her
home where she’s lived
alone for some eleven
years now, her toes so
curled from the years
spent threshing for ex-
istence, for subsistence.
She bends down after
brushing the wealthiest
of the middling splashes
of green on the floor
of her home with the
nails of her feet. The
shock of coolness that
instantly flows upward,
from the bottom of her
feet to her breast, has her
breath momentarily caught
in a brief but clear encounter
with feeling— that elusive
desire so easy to for-
get when a life has
long seen nothing
save the depravity
of a steadfast home
and the wild prairie
that envelops it.
The devil you
know, she sud-
denly says, as if
the phrase were
something of a
delightful exple-
tive. And she
plucks the green
from the floor and
she takes it into
her mouth, all
but the dry-caked
root, which she holds
at her lips as she lets
the babes of leaf sit up-
on her tongue and wid-
en her cheeks for a
few seconds, savoring,
more of an abrupt in-
halation than a swal-
lowing, of that shal-
low sweetness that is
is the brief vapor that
the leaves give as they
wilt enough to gain
a bit of traction to-
ward inevitability.
