Allison Seay

Then there was the time I looked directly into the face of the life I thought I was missing, of love. I used to think to be not alone meant never having to walk through the high wheat or struggle in the water. Not having to decide not to fling from some height. Once, the two of us rode one bicycle. I wore a straw hat and perched on the handlebars and beside us the sea oats swayed like skirts and I heard a trilling in the crabgrass. The sidewalks were bleached as Grecian stone as we rode past the fish shop smelling of morning— salt, bread, limes, men. Riding in front, it was such that I could not be heard always, at least not the first time for you pedaled into the wind and my hair was a ribbon in your eyes. I said I thought bougainvillea was a stoic plant and then had to say twice,no,stoic! and then no,the bougainvillea! and then you said easily it was nothing like that at all. But our future was clear enough when I asked if you saw the clean aprons of those men (how much longer you think until they clean the fish? did you see how white those aprons were? did you see?)

Since I was the one who had been ill, it was me she came to see. Everyone wanted a glimpse of her. The people emerged from their houses toward mine and with such caution. They made a visor of their hands. It was as if they were to be accounted for, wading the long uphill, little moving triangles all I could distinguish at first. But the queen came to see only me and I saw her. And my life for a while was dismissed and so repaired.

In the road, a dog. Days dead, that dog. Liliana was walking beside me awhile (I am sure) and I was almost not crying but then found what I was looking for. She heaved it for me—all of it, the stench, the weight— in her thin arms until it was too much. Tired, she dragged the thing by its wasted paws all the way home. Her dress was stained. This is how I learned about love. She did not mind at all the silent, steady distance I placed between us.