Life is pink and if you’re lucky, love is red.
I am lucky because I know how to knit

and because smart people worry about astrophysics on my behalf.
To demonstrate spectacular confidence, a comet lands

like a brilliant white egg in the sky.
Reality is a gesture toward space

waiting to be seen by somebody else.
Our eyes may never adjust.

Love, move toward me like a boat of animals.
I want to hear music in an eternal mirror.

At midnight, when the rabbit’s foot
twitches three times in sleep,

you will find your lover
in a flower made of fields.

Only once in your life
will you have a life-defining kiss

but may the others be just as good.
If you stay up late talking about desire,

you will wake under an open window
holding fistfuls of silver thread.

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All summer long, the sky bruised itself against the hills, the clouds smothered the valley—heavy, wet with warnings.

In June, the rivers swelled, reaching greedy hands up the banks and dragging stones into their throats.

By July, the sun peeled back the skin of the asphalt, and the air stood still, thick enough to sip. In August, we watched as fire swallowed a distant ridge,

then another. Smoke leaned into the town. The children rubbed their eyes raw, their fingers smudged with soot.

What’s a drought but a forgetting? A fever but a memory of ice? You carried a jug of water to the garden each morning, pouring it slow, as if trying to teach the earth patience. Each day, the ground cracked wider. Each night, we dreamed of rain that never came.

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When my mother says
she is a person without a world,
I know we are both running
from when the present is no longer.

Forty suns before today,
I became her visitor;
Forty nights a witness
to where she lays under sterile light.

Because she cannot hold me
she tells me to soften,
                    but I have already sublimated into mist

                                        —Softly I feel
                                                  the world’s embrace
                                                            taking shape
                                                                      in her half-hollowed place.

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I put on my rain coat and hat

snap out the lights one last time and

pause with my hand on the door knob.

Little brass specks embrowned in my

ripening fist hiss in the stone forge of the hourglass.

The doorway trembles and heaves

darkenings free from their doorstep

with all the ecstasy of a popped balloon.

A young moon drips its slender light

rippling softly on the stairs. Lilacs

exhale delicate curled horns into the

curved sky. What a relief to pass through

that great door and find ones self under

soft pale stars shining through the

perforated vault of heaven.

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They said Baba Kayode punched a man to death. We thought it was a lie, considering everything he did for us. Every Christmas, the whole village lined before his gate for small bags of rice and jerry cans of groundnut oil, and when our children were thrown out of school, he gave us money for school fees. He even bought wrappers for our wives that Christmas year. You know the year, the year rain flooded our farmlands and gulped up all the fish in the river, so we earned nothing from all our hard work. We were round-belly men with big-hipped wives, wives we couldn’t feed a balanced diet, wives we wanted to ride every night because despite all our daily toiling the bold thing between our legs was never tired. Our wives denied us mostly. No one couldn’t blame us. We were farmers. We were fishermen. We were simple men who, after a hard day's work, wanted to tap from the sea of sweetness our wives carried around in those juicy hips. How else were we supposed to release all the hardness life peppered us with? It was our small heaven.  

#

The reason Baba Kayode killed a man was longer than the Nile River. The why passed down from Baba Kayode's security guards to his gateman, to the gateman’s girlfriend, to the girl’s family, then to us. 

Everything started when his wife, Mama Kayode—the only woman in the village who had never cooked or washed in her life, her skin butter-soft and yellow like the inside of a mango—dragged her bags back to her father’s house for reasons she refused to disclose to anyone including her parents. She said she needed time to herself, a marriage break. 

“A marriage break?” we gasped. 

We had never heard it. Maybe she was drunk, we said. Maybe all the body cream she used had made her mad, our wives said. A married woman stayed married except when the husband died. For someone rich like Baba Kayode, it wasn’t unusual to see them marry up to four wives, if not more. Mama Kayode had caged his heart. But her lack of competition triggered her nerve to leave his house. The village elders told him to marry one more wife and see if she wouldn’t run back, begging. Baba Kayode, being the gentleman he was, with a hand under his chin, exhaled and said he had no interest in marrying another wife. All that was set in his mind was to take care of his three sons and only daughter, Bisoye, spoilt and stubborn, living the carefree life of a lastborn. He feared she was turning wayward and required his third eye.

A month later, we caught the rumour that Mama Kayode was going out with Dr Bassey, a medical doctor who was a decade younger than her. We widened our eyes and saw them at the market buying foodstuff, at the river washing their clothes, at church, same church Baba Kayode attended. Always, they were hand in hand. Shameless. Baba Kayode tilted his head up as though he had seen nothing. But the village elders too saw and took the news to him. They asked him if he had held Mama Kayode’s hand like she did with Dr Bassey. Not in a long time, he said. The village elders shook their heads. Maybe she hungered for youthful love—hands-holding love, public love—but any man old enough to work had no time to hold his woman in public when he was supposed to be fishing or farming. This Dr Bassey was a lazy man who should never have anything to eat, who shouldn’t be entrusted with a woman. 

A year later, Dr Bassey left for London and Mama Kayode sought Baba Kayode at his house. She wanted forgiveness and to return home. It sounded simple. But it wasn’t. The rumour that whirled its way to us had it that she was pregnant, with only a few weeks to labour. Yet he embraced her, kissed her lips, and ordered his servants to take her bags inside and prepare for a party. His servants slaughtered two goats, brought out the oldest bottle of wine, and called the biggest musician in the whole village. His prodigal wife had returned home, he said. That night we horded into his large compound with our empty stomachs. We drank. We dined. We danced. And we took leftovers home. 

A month later, cries of death came from his compound. His prodigal wife and the baby had died during labour. Cause of death: haemorrhage. Big word for a big person. When people like us died, we died of simple words. A fall from a palm tree. Juju. Old age. 

After her burial, he shut down his multiple businesses. Inside his bedroom, he shut himself, refusing to see anyone. For months this went on and his sons looked after his businesses. The story of his wife became our village cautionary tale. We drew our daughters by the ear and told them to be faithful to their husbands if they didn’t want to die in labour. Every night, their ears drank our warnings. For years, our daughters married men and stayed married, afraid of losing their lives. Baba Kayode remained widowed, refusing to marry any of the women flaunting their hips around him. 

Years later, Dr Bassey, still a single man, returned and built a hospital, the biggest our village had ever seen. Bisoye, Baba Kayode’s daughter, now a nurse, got a job there. Baba Kayode didn’t want her to work there, for he said Dr Bassey killed her mother. Aside from being stubborn, she wanted the job because the pay was great and the hospital was more equipped than any of the village hospitals, so he granted her wish. A year later, Bisoye fell in love with Dr Bassey, and they got married against Baba Kayode’s warning. Baba Kayode denied the marriage his blessings and refused to attend the wedding. We too, angry, didn’t attend. We told all church priests we knew not to bless the marriage and they obeyed us. But Dr Bassey brought in a foreign priest, a white man, who smiled too much for a priest. 

A day after the wedding, Baba Kayode went to the market square, picked a built man, paid him a million naira and asked the man to let his body be used as a punching bag. Why? the man said. Baba Kayode said he needed to let go of the anger of losing his wife and favourite daughter to the same man. He said life had been unfair to him.

The man refused and gave him his money back. When Baba Kayode got home, he was told another man was at the gate, ready to be used as a punching bag. The man was let in, given a contract to sign (in case of injuries or death, Baba Kayode would be nonliable), given the money, and tied to a steel pole in the compound. From morning till evening, Baba Kayode punched. The man bled. Baba Kayode also bled. And cried. After, some of his guards held him back, for Baba Kayode kept falling, and the man was sent home with his money. The next morning, the man’s wife sobbed to Baba Kayode’s house and said her husband had died. 

We were trying to get down with our wives when we heard that the king had sent for him. We all filled up the palace. Our hearts beating on our palms, we prayed the king wouldn't hang him. Baba Kayode told his side of the story and everyone who witnessed it told the same story. 

“Why a man?” the king said. “You could have punched a punching bag instead.”

“It had to be a man because a man caused my suffering.”

“So, you admit to killing another man?”

Baba Kayode turned away from the king and gazed at our sweaty faces. He wiped off a tear along the edge of his eye. “Yes, I killed a man. I deserve to die too.”

“No,” we screamed and crowded behind him. The king signaled to his bodyguard to hang him. We circled him and told the king we won’t let this happen. 

“He doesn’t deserve to die,” we said. “You will have to kill us before you can hang him. And besides, the dead man signed a contract.”

The king waved his hand and granted him a pardon. We danced and took him home. 

The next morning, we found Baba Kayode in the bush, at the top of a mango tree. A noose hung from a branch. He tied his neck. His legs dangled in the air. 

“No.” We climbed the tree and gripped his wriggling body. He kicked and kicked at us. Tears snaking down his face. He told us to leave him alone, that life had been unfair to him, that he was a murderer and alone in this world. 

We held on to every scrap of him. We sang his praises: how we had survived because of him, how we couldn’t send our children to school without him, how our wives had new wrappers because of him. We told him we loved him, that we would die if he died. He gaped at us and stopped writhing. We brought him down and took him home, again. 

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a. Forensic Memoir 

“Minds are like Rubik’s Cubes, you got to twist ’em till they work right.” The nursery owner hunched over a spigot spraying off a pair of white Crocs. A broad-shouldered bear of a man, shaggy hair, mutt face. I took a step back to avoid the sluice of dark muck bleeding off his shoes. He tipped his head to a field of saplings past the greenhouse. “For instance, twist your mind right and you can understand the souls of trees.” He glanced back at me, scanned down my bare legs. “Though hormones make it harder for women.” A snorting laugh rumbled out of him, challenge gleamed in his eyes.

I pulled at my skirt. My throat clotted with heat and I looked to the ground. The dried muck coming off his Crocs mixed with the spigot’s spray of water. It turned from deep rust brown to a crimson shade, snaking down the concrete in bright rivulets. Streams of red. Tiny rivers of blood. I pulled the hairband on my wrist and released. It snapped hard against the tender underbelly of skin, shook my mind with pain. I bent to look closer. The trails of blood were not blood at all, rather the wet slick of earthworms, thousands, writhing in the watery mess.

Exhibit 1.1    

Late at night I liked to read John Locke's Causal Theory of Perception. He proposed that our ideas about reality are different from reality itself. That we can never accurately copy reality into our minds. He believed tiny particles (corpuscles) interacted with our sensory organs and generated our ideas. I had a theory that if you could tune the frequency of your senses to corpuscles you could see through the layers of reality.

The nursery owner kicked the water valve closed and straightened. “Let’s find you a tree.” He stuffed his long hairy toes, pale fish feet, into the Crocs. He walked past me, too close, backing me into the greenhouse wall. I tried to suck in my stomach, conscious of his thin, taut frame.

 “So, what’s your flavor? Deciduous…coniferous…fruit?” 

“Something evergreen…” I let it fall like a question and I wasn’t sure why. Buying a tree for our first house seemed like a grown-up thing to do. I wanted an evergreen like all the ones I grew up with in Maine, a tribute to childhood as I stepped into adult skin. Womanhood. 

The nursery owner whistled through his teeth. “Righto. A woman who knows what she wants. Follow me Madam Green Thumb.” 

The country nursery lay empty, midsummer heat radiating mirages off everything. In the field rows he walked heel to toe like a middle-aged funambulist. The Crocs squeaked against each other, a sharp squeal of rubber on rubber. He mumbled and jived his hips as he went. I stopped and brushed the limb of a stout tree. “What about this one?”

He turned back, ran a finger around the rim of his nostril. “That one there's a sugar pine.” He plunged the finger up his nose. It came back out with a wet booger dangling—green, brown, specks of red. “You don’t want one of those.” He flicked the fat glob, but it stuck fast. He looked at it for a moment, brows knit, hard eyes, like it was a disobedient child. With his thumb he smashed it, rolled, flicked again, arching it into an elegant swoop that landed at his feet. The glob perched defiantly on the round toe of his Croc.

He turned back, ran a finger around the rim of his nostril. “That one there's a sugar pine.” He plunged the finger up his nose. It came back out with a wet glob dangling—green, brown, specks of red. “You don’t want one of those.” He flicked the mucous slop, but it stuck fast. His nostrils flared. He examined it, brows knit, hard eyes, like it was a disobedient child. With his thumb he smashed, rolled, formed the loose mass into a tight ball. He flicked again. The boogie flew, arched in an elegant swoop between us and landed on the round toe of his Croc. It stuck fast, perched defiant, on the white rubber.

“I like this one.” I held on to the tree’s limb. In the clutch of my hand, the furry tickle of needles felt like happiness.

Exhibit 1.2

When I told my therapist about the Japanese scientists who successfully trained pigeons to discriminate between paintings by Monet and Picasso, he adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and leaned close to me. “Most of my patients couldn’t tell the difference between reality and their own minds if their lives depended on it.” I wanted to ask more but he tapped his watch. Time was up. “Bird brains,” he chuckled as I walked out of his office.

The nursery owner ignored me, forged ahead further into the field, stomping, grumbling, tossing his hair from his eyes.

“Lookey here.” He stopped at a bent tree with long showy needles and waved me over. I picked my way through swaths of thorny weeds. His grin spread to show his teeth, all fleeced in yellow tartar. “It's a Weeping Pine, damn nice specimen.”

I took another step closer to the drooping tree. “I think I like that sugar pine back there better. I’ve heard they’re native to this part of Pennsylvania and hearty.”

The nursery owner mashed a fistful of the tree’s wispy canopy. One of the tiny pinecones broke off and fell to the ground. “You’re a connoisseur now?” He raised a hand to his brow and looked around. “I thought I was the only expert ‘round here—helping you out.”

 “I’m sorry.”  The apology rolled out before I realized I had opened my mouth. “It’s just that I like the other one…more.” 

The nursery owner’s face pinched down to his puckered lips. “Girls gotta have their say.” His voice flattened over the word “say.” 

Exhibit 1.3    

I asked my therapist if he ever read Kafka—the one where the guy Gregor turns into a bug. Metamorphosis. He said he didn’t. I told him about my professor explaining the bug represented alienation, the natural result of dehumanization, of being repulsed by society. My therapist asked me if I thought I was a bug.

The nursery owner wiped sweat from his neck with a grimy handkerchief. He dragged the bunched cloth across the skin slumping over his Adams apple. The loose skin pulled and flopped. In his movement the underside of his arm turned toward me. I saw pink and white stripes down the length of his wrist, around the bulge of his inner bicep. A staccato of broken and unbroken skin. Scratch marks in the crescent moon curve of acrylic nails. Raw. Fresh. I blinked three times, rapid eyelid shudders that juddered all the way to my brain. I peered closer, widened my eyes. Not scratches at all but the powdery white wings of moths, hundreds, standing in rows on his arm. They alighted, and soared above us in twirling arcs. 

The nursery owner cocked his head. “Welp, I’ve got another kind out back.” 

I glanced at my lone car parked far behind us in the dirt lot. Apprehension needled at my gut. “That’s ok you don’t have to—” But he took off, leading the way. I wished I had asked Jake to come with me, but I didn’t want to start a fight on his day off. I picked up the tiny pinecone, rolled it around in my palm, letting the sharp points of the scales scratch my skin. “I think I’ll just take the sugar pine.” 

He stopped, twisting the heel of his white Croc into the dirt. “Look, I’m a live and die by principles guy, the best kind of man. Let me help you get the right tree.” 

“I understand, but—”

“Can’t you walk a little more?” 

I clutched the pinecone in my fist. He must have been thirty years older than me, but he was long legged and lean in a way that showed all the sinews. “Yes, I can.” I set my jaw against him, against daddy's old nickname for me, Miss Piggy, and followed his quick pace. My thighs bullied for space under my jean skirt, spitting sweat at each other like teasing schoolgirls.

Exhibit 1.4

My therapist told me he was a feminist. He always pointed to the Virginia Woolf quote above his desk. “Who shall measure the heat and violence of a poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?” I recognized the Ikea frame. It was one of the $1.99 cheapos you find at the end of the long winding trail of retail. It hung askance, discolored and bowed where the nail held it to the wall. 

Outbuildings stood in a scatter across the property, odd angles, corners sinking, roofs pressing in. Shards of wood siding and bits of trash splayed out on the lawn like a constellation. Every few steps the nursery owner pulled at his sagging sweatpants and smiled back at me. 

In front of an old stone barn hugging the forest's edge he stopped. “Look there, all those are Eastern Pines. Now I’m gonna show you what these trees can do.” From his wiry nest of chest hair, he pulled out a chain with a brass key, worked the teeth of it into the lock. 

“After you m’lady.” He anchored the door open with his foot; his Crocs already browned in the kicked-up dirt. I wondered why a nursery owner would choose white. 

“You don’t have to go out of your way for me—”

“Making sure every customer gets the right thing for them is my job. Don’t make me regret bringing you all the way out here.” At his shoulder, just below the cut-off sleeve I saw a train of purple-blue bruises, little cabooses all in a circle, the perfect O of a biting mouth. 

Exhibit 1.5

At my last session my therapist snapped his pen on the yellow pad when I told him the concerns I had for one of my students. A young girl showing up to kindergarten with bruises on her arms, her cheek, one on her neck. “You’re only a first-year teacher with limited experience,” he said. He snapped the pen hard again, making me almost jump from my seat. “Beside you’re not in a good place to accurately assess such things, children get bruises all the time—especially clumsy little girls.” His soft tone strained as though something very sharp pushed on it.

I bit down on my pinky nail—hard. In the crisp shriek of it breaking my mind shifted and I saw the bite mark mutate to the soft dome of a violet cort mushroom poking out his shoulder. Behind him the giant sun setting on the horizon winked at me with wild streaks of orange as though to say everything would be alright.

The nursery owner ushered me over the threshold and let the door swing shut behind us. Inside the barn, thin veils of particle light bled in from holes in the roof. A musky animal smell ate up into my nose. “Lady, watch it.” He grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me past a swaying butcher's hook. The fly-ridden mound hanging from it buzzed. Kissing two of his fingertips he placed them on it. He did it in a sacred way, like I had seen priests do to the Eucharist. “Precious stuff,” he said. I stepped backward, bile singed the back of my throat. I let the acid fumes dance my mind awake and examined the hanging mound again. It was not a mass of flesh, only a few husky snakes wrestling out of their own skins. 

The nursery owner’s willowy arm swung out. “C’mon now.” 

In the center of the space, a blue tarp draped over three uniform mounds, the length of human bodies. “Another one of my talents.”

He rushed ahead and ripped away the plastic sheeting with the bravado of a magician swiping a tablecloth out from under a set of bone China.

“Made these here myself.” He cocked his head. “Finest coffin you’ll ever see.” He enunciated, clear and crisp, his drawl evaporating.

The pine boxes were marvels, fitted with perfect dove-tailed corners and sanded smooth as baby's skin. My imagination flared—every true crime show I’d ever loved played at the scene before me. All the ingredients ready to mix. Perfect scene. Perfect scenario. Murder baked easy.

Exhibit 1.6

In university my best friend wrote her thesis on psychological correlates of women romanticizing serial killers. Her hypothesis: trauma and internalized sexism can explain some women’s fascination with serial killers. The study was a part of a larger research program on sexual coercion among female college students. She also conducted qualitative research, case studies of candidates that fit her criteria of internalized misogyny, adverse childhood experiences, PTSD. She titled the thesis Modern American Women’s Romanticization of Violent Male Offenders. She cited one case study repeatedly. She said I substantiated her results. 

I reached to touch one of the pine coffins. 

“Don’t.” The nursery owner rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in front of my face. “Oil is no good for wood. You gotta be wearin’ gloves or a dried-out body.”

I pocketed my hand. 

“Made from Eastern pine because it grows straight. It’s a beautiful wood almost everyone overlooks, just because it’s soft.” He scanned me up and down and all I could think about was the college weight—that grew into stressful new job weight—that expanded into anxious relationship weight—that brought me to a soft state of overlook.

I pulled out my cell phone to check my account balance. The low battery message flashed. “How much for an Eastern pine?” 

He pushed his lower lip out. “Sweety, I’m talking about value. You got to get your mind twisted right like the Rubik’s Cube.” He brought his face close to mine, his breath a cloud of egg salad. “You with me?” The streak of my cell phone’s blue screen light glowed between us. 

“I am. Rubik’s Cube, straight wood—”

He slapped me on the back. “Straight wood, ha. I have a joke for you. What do you call the pubic hair you get caught in a Rubik’s Cube?”

My tongue stuck to the back of my teeth, uncomfortable feelings washing over me. 

“Pubic cubes.” He erupted in a wild guttural laugh. “Pubic cubes, pubic cubes, I love me some lady boobs.” His eyes went distant, then flashed back to me. “I’ll take $44 for the Eastern Pine. $40 if it’s cash.”

I tugged on my purse strap. “I’ll have to come back. Friday, payday.” The sound of my car keys jangling in my purse eased my breath.

The man lifted his chin. “Some people don’t abide by principles, but I do. For a nice young lady like you, I’ll take $40 with your card. You’re nothin’ like the other one here this morning—some nurse lady, came in her scrubs straight from the hospital, complain’n her boxwood died, expecting me to give’er money back. I knew she left the bush in the car all day. Her fault entirely.” 

He paced in front of me. I couldn’t stop watching his feet, the full inch of his heel folding over the back of the Crocs with each step—white and way too small. I thought then of all the nurse friends I knew who wore white Crocs every day to work. 

“Would you believe that damned nurse blamed me, said she had a bad feeling about me in the first place. I’ll tell you I was highly offended. She even had the gall to demand her money back! No way, no how. Principles always stand, we live, or we die by ‘em.” Spittle bubbled in the corners of his mouth. “Deceit lies in the heart.” He pounded a fist on his chest. “I had to set her straight.”

I wanted to ask what he meant by “set her straight,” but more than that I wanted to leave. 

He kicked a foot up onto one of the coffins, pushed open the lid with his heel. “Go ahead give one a try.” I stepped back. He sniggered. “Skittish, huh?” A small, involuntary sob erupted in my throat. “Just a joke, darling. Not meanin’ to scare you.” 

I pretended to cough into my arm, trying to hide the wet in my eyes, the embarrassing misgiving of my body. “No worries. Good joke.” It came out like a high-pitched whine—like hands were squeezed around my throat.

Exhibit 1.7 

My therapist had recently broken his practice of open-ended questions to tell me about paranoia, irrational and persistent feelings that people are 'out to get you.' I didn’t understand when he made air quotes.

The nursery owner pushed the coffin’s lid open a little further. “Brings us back to the Rubik’s Cube—have to get your mind twisted around it right. Death’ll happen to everyone sometime. No escaping that.”

“I should get going.” I pulled out my phone to make a show of checking the time but it was dead. 

He reached out. “Alrighty then, we got a deal on that Eastern pine?”

“Yes.” We shook. His hand was a great bear paw—brown fur and curled claws. Clamping my fingers, biting into my skin. I stared until the brown fur thinned to human hair, and the yellowed claws shrank back to unkempt nails. I chided myself.

“You’re a nice girl.” He pulled me closer. 

Exhibit 1.8

My therapist sighed when I showed him the post, “Micro-Concessions of Nice Girls.” He handed my phone back. “You’re going to have to learn to ignore your premonitions, you can’t trust yourself to see reality correctly. We call this delusional thinking.” He leaned over and patted my knee like a concerned grandpa. “It’s hard for everyone to face any diagnosis, but paranoia is especially difficult for patients to accept.” 

The toe of the nursery owner’s Croc rocked on the coffin, nosing into the muggy space between my legs. “Being a good girl is how you got such a fan-fucking-tastic price out of me.” I smiled and swallowed, the gulping noise of it forced down my throat like Jake’s jizz when he would hold my head down and not let me spit.

The nursery owner’s Croc brushed the hem of my jean skirt. He flicked his foot, trembling the fabric. “Good thing I’m principled or you might not be getting your tree today.” I thought again of my keys in my purse, how far it was to the parking lot. A patter knocked at the metal roof. He threw back his head and sniffed. “Rains a’coming. We better hurry, get your tree loaded before it bursts.” His grip loosened and I slipped my hand free. 

In three wide steps the nursery owner crossed the barn and exited. I followed him exhaling all the pent up air in my lungs. 

Before I reached the barn door, the nursery owner poked his head back in. “Don’t you agree now?”

“Agree with?”

“‘Bout me being principled.”

I counted the steps between us. His wide strides, my short legs. “I do.”

He grinned, the long plinths of his teeth menacing. “Got your pubic cube working now—” His teeth snapped together and he stepped back into the barn. “Whatcha got there sweety?” He grabbed me by the wrist and twisted my left arm in his thick fingers. My hand fell open revealing the tiny pinecone nested in my palm. “Steal’n from me?”  Sandpaper gritted in my mouth.

The nursery owner jerked my wrist, and the pinecone dropped onto the sandy loam of the barn floor. His voice swung low. “Am I the only one with principles?” He pushed me further into the barn and the animal smell of the thing hanging from the butcher’s hook filled my mouth. The taste of death. I couldn’t see the snakes anymore no matter how hard I squinted—only a hunk of flesh the shape of a heart. He brought his face close, pressed his nose into my cheek. “Tell me I’m the best kind of man.” My skin prickled, the needling in my gut expanded, clawed at my chest, my breath, my voice.

The nursery owner shoved me toward the coffins. I felt myself shrink. “Please, let me go.” 

He tightened his grip. “No way, no how. Principles always stand, we live, or we die by ‘em. And you my dear ain’t living by ‘em.” With all the fear roaring inside me I threw my weight against his chest. He stumbled, lost his footing. “I’m gonna set you straight.” He kicked the too small Crocs off. They flew through the barn, two snowy birds, feathers tainted with mud. I watched them soar, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood in my mouth. The pain seared my brain, and I saw then they weren’t snowy birds at all but the feet of a nurse in white Crocs—running. Her skin dead pale. A gaping wound at her chest. In her arms a blistered and browned boxwood. My brain slit open the present, slipped in between layers, to the liminal space of real and unreal, blood and worms, scratches and moths, bruises and mushrooms—snakes and hearts ripped from their human cavity. In the knife edge sliver of the in between space, I heard my mother, “If the shoe fits…” 

b. Deleted Exhibit 

Exhibit 1.0 

In graduate school a professor gave a lecture on female empowerment to the women’s sororities. The room was packed with 250 students. Hot as hell. All of us women boiling in our seats, sweat dripping down our backs, pooling in our bras. She gave the whole hour-long informative lecture, straight faced and serious. We applauded her as she left the stage. The girls in my row, almost in unison, turned and asked each other if it was hot or if it was just them. Before she stepped off the stage the professor stopped, flicked her mic back on. She told us she had the university maintenance department turn the heat to 97 degrees earlier in the day. “And not one of you stood up and questioned whether it was hot in the room, if something should be done about.” She looked out at the audience. “How many of you asked if it was just you or if someone sitting next to you thought it was hot?” She paused, waited for a sea of hands to rise. “You’ve been conditioned, by our culture, by our society not to trust your own responses to the world around you, you’ve been taught to be nice girls, good girls—to disguise your own perceptions of reality from yourselves.” 

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