Forty-three

A woman died in our apartment before it was our apartment. I always imagined her as an old woman because we were told she had died in her sleep.

COTTAGE

by Leah Browning


It reminds me of the first house, the one with seven roommates
who all played in a band, and your room behind a silk batik curtain.

The door was always open to let the cat in and out of the yard,
and one of the roommates got high and started to vacuum

while we sat on the couch with our parents. You were about to
graduate from college. I was in the middle of a cross-country

move and pregnant, or about to become pregnant. We were all in
flux then, flowing toward the people we were going to be

and also death, but that seemed so far away on the summer day
I am describing. This cottage is much smaller, surrounded by trees

and further on, a creek; the bandmates have taken their drum kits
and guitars and moved on, and we are alone here now.

You stand on the porch with your easel and paint me
walking amongst the crocuses and irises and phlox

with the black cat and her kittens, who go on roaming the forest
without concern, knowing that our door will always be open.