FOR(A)GING

We woke to the sound of wilderness rushing into a vacuum. Its steam held us in good faith, as for a moment we forgot to corset ourselves. Vines too relaxed their green fists. We helmed a creative period with our encounters. And foraged it.

There, in a valley beneath the town where some held keys and others did not, pearled an anchor. There, clouds and reams of blue heather. A shameless waltz. Graffitied ruins. The couple unpacking history to relieve their dewy web. Mourning doves. Dairy cattle that could not strike for themselves. Hidden radio waves that listed love up and down. And again you paraphrased the Gramsci quote. I collected each ounce of your words so mine would seem less precious.

All held, there. Our thoughts looked like amoebas and sounded like rain. Calling far and warped, the unaccounted for sung maps for accountants’ retirement. A bridge we could not compete to cross. I returned to you that evening horribly dressed. The river gutted me. I was grateful to be surrounded by more interesting debris than myself. Leaves and dynamite. The horror of architecture, reflected. Description and critique chased each other melodically, and their tail formed a long, exhausting day. But even in irony, we communed with meaning. We had to. It survived our passivity.

Maria Bobbitt-Chertock is a writer whose work can be found in SUSAN and other corners of the Internet. They went to college in Vermont, where they graduated with a degree in Feminist Studies, and grew up in Ohio, which haunts them. Sometimes they tweet @lachrymalevents.