High Priestess
Our first appointment late on a Friday, the therapist ought to be tired. Instead she’s honed like an old knife ready to skin us cleanly out of our marriage. She offers a couch or separate chairs and you choose the black chair near the door while I settle in a dark corner where a plant has recently died. “What brings you here?” she begins, and you shyly open the bandage for her to probe. I wonder did she see our X-rays, how’d she know the perfect place to stick the knife? Once, I watched a country neighbor expertly skin a squirrel. The fur slipped off like a glove. “Done one, you done ’em all.” Are all of us alike? Small stunned mammals, unable to go on, afraid to let go, a slice and a tug and the bond tears loose with very little blood? We paid our money and walked out shivering.
Hermit
She went to the mountains with her dog, built a fire in the stove, lit lamps, cooked dinner and read all night. The little stream outside her door ran loud, out of its banks, and it snowed all the next day. She came to love her swollen face in the wavy mirror, the neat crack of maple logs and the axe’s blond handle that fit her hand so aptly. Her dreams, as she slept unafraid of anyone who might come to her door, were of her own ghost, a bride in these mountains before they were scarred. The last night, when she felt her need disperse, she didn’t beg or question but wrapped the dark around her like a lover and took the eager cold into her bones.
