phoenix {rising} |
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This Is Yesterday During class, I lean my head down to set my forehead in my hand. Ana is sitting next to me, and in the unexpected viewfield of my strange position, I can see the ladder of parallel cuts running the length of her left arm. I whip my head up, but then I start to believe I've imagined it. I sneak a careful look at her arm, half-hidden under the sweatshirt in her lap. I hadn't imagined it. On sunny days, the quad fills up with conversation. Ana and I eat lunch, talking elliptically about my semester off. I see Claire's reflection in the window behind us first, then look for Maggie's smaller one next to it. When Maggie sits down and tells Claire to sit down, I tense. Conversation becomes performance. I am carefully civil. At the fruit stand, the smell of slightly overripe strawberries radiates off the plastic pint boxes. We walk along the shoulder of 28th Avenue, Maggie and I carrying two pint boxes each. Ana stoops down to pack apples and a Diet Coke into her black bag. The cars taking the curve cut us a wide berth, their far wheels crossing the median as they flash brightly by. The front lawn is bright green and broad. There is a couch sitting stolidly out in its approximate center, under a tree. I lean back to throw strawberry stems over the back of the couch, shield my eyes from the sun to look at Ana as she and Maggie swap dogbite stories. In the Bragdon social room, I shift awkwardly and end up catching up with Tim, who doesn't know the people my stories tend to involve. He calls me back as I am leaving, to give me a hug. The blue bridge in the dark, unearthly, the way it tips and evens as you come down the cross-canyon hill toward it, toward the night bus and its temporary silence. When I get home, Noah opens the door before I've even touched it with my key. I blink in the doorway. The kitchen is full, people are laughing, and I stay and chat for awhile before heading upstairs. |
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