into town

This is the best part of my life: walking downstairs at one in the morning to make peanut butter and honey sandwiches, humming “Wild Horses.” He has left all the windows open. This is my hand securing the chain.

This is my hand writing words.

This is my mouth holding a promise.

This is the way we go into town. When we go into town, we say: we are going into town.

This is the neighbor playing the mandolin. The girls are on their porches with guitars. The woman is walking back to her house with a water glass in her hand.

This is an onion slice in my hand. I do not cry when I cut them, even when I cut off the root, even when I cut a whole red mess. I do not cry. I never have.

I cut the onions, and I wash the dishes, and I write the story of a girl I made up, and a girl the south and a small town and a storm and a teacher and her unhappy husband made up stands at the window, and wonders what will happen next.

This is my blue dress. See it?

This is my heart beneath it, beating still. Like earthworms, all the pieces work. They will work despite their severance. They will beat on in the dark. They will go in the world, into town, and search.