STILL LIFE WITH DROUGHT, CIGARETTES, AND THE GUADALQUIVIR by Megan J. Arlett
What to do with this obsession, sit her on the front step with us as we blow smoke into August’s heat? Loss makes a dent in the air. And I’m supposed to bear it? I can’t bear it. Taste of promise. Taste of ash and dirt. The sound a plant makes as it dies from thirst. Bubbles clicking through xylem–morse code for gasping–body turned to desert. A person is allowed to have secrets. Two hundred miles from here, the Guadalquivir quivers like she’s hiding something. Drunk men fall into her pewter arms beating the alloy around them. Vice she holds on tight, facilitating the accident no longer waiting to happen. Like all violence, there is an embrace. Like any affair, there is an ache.
