Her Body
Her body doesn’t know the season. First hot, then cold, then much too hot, and she is flinging the back door open, fanning her shirt from neck and chest, uttering “Ugh!” “Oh!” “Uhh!”
It is October, 66º in the house and 44º outside. She sits at the desk wearing short sleeves and jeans, bare feet in sandals — and she is hot. Still, the shoulder turned toward the big window — only that shoulder — is chilled. Warm air from the heat vent under the desk moves the fine hairs on her face but in a moment she will be too cold altogether, looking for a sweater and the wool-lined sheepskin boots for wearing indoors through the fall, winter, and spring. A runny nose from September to June so her body requires a box of tissues at every endpoint: by the bed, by the couch, on the writing desk, at the computer, next to the reading chair, on the kitchen counter, in the car. If it is really summer, the tissue consumption slows, nosebleeds stop, and her skin heals and darkens, sucking in humidity like sweet tea.
Her body doesn’t know what it’s doing. It hurts, it halts, it grinds and pops, it won’t obey but still believes it can climb a ladder or ride a horse. It remembers hauling tall ladders and leading edgy horses, remembers hiking, swimming, digging, building, running, dancing. Now it itches, burns, bruises, aches, cramps, throbs, resists, fails, falls. It remembers sleeping deeply and long but has forgotten how. It is brittle as tinder, dry on the outside and the inside, too. It is hungry. It needs to pee, again! It wants to lie down. It enters a room but it doesn’t know why. Retraces its path, hunting for a scent like the animal it is.
Her body says, get me those boots and that sweater, won’t you? How about a snack, is it time to eat? It says, let’s lie on the couch under a comforter and watch TV. One hand peeks out from the blanket to work the remote. Eyes on the closed captioning, she looks away during the sex scenes, unwilling to respond. Her body has forgotten sex. Well, it has forgotten good sex. It remembers every cringing, awful moment of bad sex. Unwelcome sex, aggressive sex. It remembers stupid sex, drunken sex, embarrassing sex.
But sometimes her body still dreams the dreams of love; of warm, blossoming comfort, surrender, and security. Dreams of happiness so round and profound and clean that the feeling slakes every thirsty cell and softens all the long muscles in the dreaming body that pours delicious joy, and … oh, so maybe it does remember good sex.
Her body does not know its name. Does not have a name. It has no language, no intimates to speak its name. For all its senses it has no sense. It is a timer, a tide. It has no home, no season.
Her body is aimless, an aging minivan of breath, blood, and bone, waiting passively at the bottom of an exit ramp, the passenger seat strewn with gum wrappers, coupons, used tissues, and a stick of lip balm that has lost its cap. Slick black plastic bags full of goodwill donations loll in the back. The turn indicator clicks and blinks rhythmically on and off, on and off, on and off.
She brushes the litter from the empty passenger seat and pulls at the wheel.
Her body makes a decision.
