Hot as a summer day. June or July; I don't own a calendar. I make lemonade. Lemon, honey, water. All-natural. You wander over, climb the porch steps, shed your clothes inside the foyer. I lick honey from my sticky fingertips, from moon-white cuticles. I smile. All summer long we've been making it up, looking for what the other can't find. You got one kid and a minivan with the MY CHILD IS AN HONOR STUDENT AT SMITH ELEMENTARY bumper sticker and a wife with the nails and the high heels. I never liked high heels, I like sneakers and thin T-shirts and my hair like moss, and I think you like me looking like that. I got a husband with a pickup truck and a fake bull testicle hitch. There's no kid, just a parakeet. Used to be. Died. Wings like a shroud in its cage. You pick me up in your lean arms and back me against the river walk wall. Surely, we'll get caught one day and when we do, you'll be climbing out the window of the guest bedroom as my husband rips his shotgun from the hallway closet, his tattoo flexing as he pulls the trigger. But I don't know what I'm doing thinking all this, all I know is that you're my now, and I never liked him much anyway.


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Read JA's postcard.





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