One Afternoon

A woman stepped outside, crumbled into a loose particulate, and, as the breeze blew up from the east, she scattered: her handful of heart, volcanic ash, spiraled the highway, and five of her teeth slipped between her neighbor's breasts; her neighbor unbuttoned her blouse to scratch at her suddenly red and luminous skin. Days passed. Each day the sun distractedly drifted from chair to chair; each night the stars, old scatterbrains, they commiserated. It didn't rain.Strange, the granular woman thought to herself:although I encompass so much, I accomplish so little. Her car sparkled with her hair and bones; her garden thrived. She tried to think: why did this happen? what had I eaten? why was I bothered?—those old hours, spotted and exotic lizards, darted the gravel, flicking through their colors of skin as one flicks channels on a tv. She couldn't catch a one. Then, as a flock of sparrows converging for the skull of an oak, all her twittering dust, her brain, bone, and the dangerous shreds of her fingers clawed for the sky; what an interesting cloud someone said.