6:53 pm

6:53 PM
Christina Hile

Tomato sauce simmers on the
stove top, my son lies helter-
skelter on the disheveled yellow
couch, his dirty feet dangling, he
plays with a plastic Thor action
figure, the laundry isn’t done
washing yet, rain starts to fall, my
right knee flares up, the cats wrestle
over a torn-up piece of paper they
fished out of the kitchen garbage can.

On the television, a girl with
curly blonde hair sticks
a middle finger down her
throat. She swallowed a
bottle of pills from her
mother’s medicine cabinet
because her boyfriend told her
she was getting fat. Now she’s
trying to throw them up in
a pink toilet in a pink-
walled bathroom with little
pink flamingos prancing across
the shower curtain.

I stand at the stove, listen to
my son make noises of what he
imagines an enchanted
hammer sounds like when it
pulverises a couch-cushion-
mountain range, my head
hurts and I wish, instead, I was
reading a novel in bed, but
I stir, and stir, because this too
leads always to joy.

Advertisement

---