Sharon Chmielarz

and turn the senior citizen center into an automated assembly line. Goodbye, dross of long winter nights. Farewell, old skin cells and reek: what couldn’t come clean on a clothesline. Bundles of pillows, caroming, bouncing, sloshing along, even as more mistresses of pillows hurry through the door, hugging stained sacks of feathers like thoughts kept well past prime. Sure, they should’ve been thrown out long ago but—we paid so dearly for them.

All those years—almost a hundred— the farm had hard water. Hard orange. Buckets lined in orange. Sink and tub and toilet, too, once they got running water. And now, in less than a lifetime, just by changing the well’s location, in the same yard, mind you, the water’s soft, clear, delicious to drink. All those years to shake your head over. Look how sweet life has become; you can see it in the couple who live here, their calmness as they sit at their table, the beauty as they offer you new water to drink.

A roadside inn. Lakeside dive. Spiffed up. End of a summer day. And I suppose I should be smiling beneficently at the families playing near the shore, their plastic balls and splashes and chatter. But my eye pivots left to a couple; he is carrying her into the water. He's strong enough, and she is light enough to be carried. I see how she holds her own, hugging his neck, his chest steady as his arms. I have never seen such a careful dunk, half-dunk, as he gives her. That beautiful play he makes lifting her from the water. And I suppose I should be admiring the sunset, all purple and orange and rose now. Nice porch here, too. Yeah, great view. But I have never seen such a loving carrying as he gives her. Imagine being so light as to float above water in love.