3:AM Magazine

By Kim Chinquee.

He Didn’t Pull the Weeds Out

He said, Hunny, Hun, and honey, where’s the seeds we planted, and she didn’t have an answer, looking at her shoe, at the ink spot. She tried to remind him of the boundary, and that the seeds were not seeds, but that they’d purchased at the market big grown plants. Herbs like basil and oregano, chives, and after she’d planted them, he didn’t pull the weeds out. She’d gone home, which was hours away and now she was back again for the weekend. She pointed to where she’d put them, said she had no idea where they’d gone. He was cooking now, a new dish with eggplant and salad and he stood out there with his scissors. She shivered and told him maybe somebody stole them, maybe ate them, maybe a squirrel tore them up, and she imagined his ex-wife or one of his ex-girlfriends, or even maybe someone else, all those someone elses. At the dinner table, she tasted salt and pepper. The lights were low and as they toasted she looked out the window, and she thought she saw a figure moving, small. He added more to her plate, in tiny delicate portions.

Tenderoni 

He was in my in-box. Tenderoni, he said. I was feverish, my head like bricks, and I drank refrigerated coffee. His note talked about his wetsuit, how he took pictures of his shadows. His mother, planes, the sea. His hands, he said they needed my massages. I was swollen. He didn’t mention the affair, how I spied and emptied out his wallet. The parts of me. Cut his clothes and drank his whiskey, burning. I coughed. He talked about my eyes. They itched. Your hair, he said. Your mind, my head, I took some aspirin, and then there was that story: his loneliness, our loveliness, the business with dizziness.

Mazurka

“My heart,” he said. She was states away, making milkshakes for her children. “My heart,” he said again and she asked him where he was now. He was on a bed behind a curtain, and she knew the place, since she used to work there. In the back, her eldest played piano, a mazurka that had been composed by this man who was her boyfriend. He was a pianist, playing in his concerts. She had to take the train to get there. “Should I come,” she said, not really in question. He said, ”I’m lonely.” The youngest screamed about a rat and then she heard some jumping. The piano stopped. “My heart,” he said again. She shushed her kids with shakes, and told them rats were harmless. She put in a DVD which she’d taken from her suitcase, one she never unpacked. She said to him, “Did they draw your blood yet?” He said they ruled out everything but heartburn. The dog was at her heels now. ”Oh?” she said, and he told her that he loved her. “I miss you,” he said. The dog stayed at her heels. He panted. He barked and she gave him treats.

Blink

He was sorry again. A lash fell into my eye and I had to blink. It was his note. He said he’d had false actions. I sat at my computer. He still loved me. I spent hours there. He said without me he’d been lifeless. I was sweating. He said I had nice hair. Your eyes, he said. I sneezed. He said that he was desperate. I yawned. He told me not to worry. His head hurt. My eyes watered. He said he was this and that and oh. There was nothing I could answer. He didn’t ask me how I was or anything.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kim Chinquee is the author of Oh Baby (Ravenna Press), the forthcoming Big Cages (White Pine Press), and is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Online Writing (1996-2006): The Best of the First Ten Years (Snowvigate Press). She has received Henfield and Pushcart Prizes, and her work has appeared in Noon, Denver Quarterly, Conjunctions, elimae, Mississippi Review, Notre Dame Review and many other fine journals.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Monday, August 4th, 2008.