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Second draft of the one I've been working on for class. Your thoughts/critiques are deeply appreciated as always.
Solitaire
Outside the bedroom window the snow flickers sideways, busy at the labor of being cold
and falling. You are in the seat by the window, listening to Fur Elise. The music is a dark-honey sob caught firm
in my ears; it sways me in place, thickening the air with golden notes of regret. The snow is coming down as if it’s embarrassed
to witness this. It seems to temporize, defensive-- I’m just doing my job here, falling and being cold.
It’s nothing personal.
I was playing Solitaire in the kitchen this morning, because Solitaire is just something that I do
when the particles of my life are spinning crazy around me. I don’t know how to gather them in; they elude
me, and I’m reaching out to grab a fistful of whirling snow, and clasping only a drop or two of winter water
in my open palm. I make them wait for the Ace, the Queen, and by the time I make thirteen, I know again
the thing I had forgotten: stillness. Outside
the street is frosted somber white. A bare handful of early buttercups are thrust skyward, the defiant heads of martyrs
straining for every last breath of February sunlight; a spray of brave gold, coins spilled in the snow. Broken, and quietly buried.
I am almost ready to leave, but I’ve forgotten something again that I’ll come looking for later. You will
be here, and you will be listening still to Beethoven in the seat by the window, because
sad music is just something that you do.
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