Torn Together

When he hugs her, she becomes a fencepost that still recalls how winter's chill ravens used her, how they sunk their sharp claws into her softest skin, squawked, sharpened their metallic beaks against her cheeks.

She raises full‑bred dogs now, those so pure their blood is thin.  She clips the ears of males for show perfection, pampers them with soft foods.  They are like growling babies.  Sometimes frightened of noise.  Sometimes incontinent.  Sometimes they attack each other.

Sometimes she attacks him.

He is a stone, river‑cold and smooth from years of rolling along the bottom.  He recalls a time before the waters uprooted him from a wide green valley that shaped clouds with fat bellies.  He has never appreciated the dogs.

She is convinced that a tea of boiled bees will cure nausea, that a two‑inch crystal of quartz knows a bleak future.

When they make love, he feels as though drowning.

--Mitchell Hegman