For Paper We Are Lost

 

Mother found him in Pandora’s Bookstore Cafe, the art dealer. He grew up close, in the valley, private school by the bored and glaring lake. No one wanted him. So he escaped into the city to deal and covet the beautiful, names and images.  Close to spring, midnight. We lie on leaves and moss between waves of earth, a few roots pushing at our ribs and spines, and the starry trees.

 

I run away, so he will hunt me down, calling Violet, Violet. In the valley the houses look down on the street and anyone there.  Mother wrote a letter to an adoption agency; upon acceptance she conceived me, and then I hid in books behind hedgerows and a high canopy bed until old enough to run away.

 

He finds me below the Bitter Cherry, stripping it for paper. We are lost. My fingers are red and I want him like fire. Close to touching, he says I should write a book before marrying. We wait for the light and the city, and for awhile he holds my hand.

 

 

 

Ariel Dawn lives in Victoria, British Columbia, with her children, Merlin and Angel. Recent writing appears in Turbulence, Tenement Block, Scraps anthology, Vine Leaves, Black & Blue, and forthcoming issue of Ambit. She is working on her first novel.