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Telling her Story to Stray Dogs

 

            She lay countless nights, her moans muffled by a pillow. 

 

She could see his face that Summer morning, feel his voice bite 

 

            into her flesh, a surgeon's scalpel, excising. She recalled 

 

waking from a deep sleep, opening her door to the early,

 

            unannounced messenger, his words, burning like dry 

 

ice. She stood motionless as he turned away, climbing hurriedly

 

            into his Honda. She felt a lightness, a readiness to levitate.

 

Looking down, she saw herself in shattered glass, concealing 

 

            the Venetian red-tiled corridor like snow flakes. Folded 

 

in two, she gathered some fragments, then for hours swept floors 

 

            and corners filled with impalpable dust. 

 

 

 

            She was surprised to hear her heartbeat. "It must have

 

been my soul," she thought, "disintegrating into feathers of glass

 

            all over the house. It’s flown everywhere, for everyone to see,

 

for everyone to blow away, broken debris coming out of nowhere." 

 

            Weeks after, amianthus-like particles still shone on the sofas,

 

the afghans, the lace curtains, the oak rocker, the crease of a silk

 

            pillow, the fold of a diphenbachia leaf. Many months later,

 

sun rays would light insidiously a dark corner, reveal a faceted 

 

            web of slivered dust, a glimmer on the edge of a window, 

 

within the braided arm of a wicker chair. 

 

 

 

            The last one to bed, she'd lie, eyes open. Eating less each 

 

day, she became paler, watched her mother stab the eye of round

 

            with a kitchen knife, saw how she pressed garlic cloves deep 

 

into openings and brought edges together to mend the surface. At

 

            the dinner table no one would know the sealed roast had

 

been pierced in so many places. Now her wound had healed. In

 

            the long waking hours, she'd hear the doorbell ring, see 

 

his words gather, needles welding into a silver scimitar. She could

 

            replay its swift movement in slow motion, fragment it all night-

 

long, fingers running over her side, redesigning the leaf's imprint. 

 

 

 

            She prayed for snow, for snow to cover his footsteps 

 

around her house, around the fig and cherry trees, erasing their

 

            traces for miles in the neighborhood, for snow to smother 

 

and bury their geography of familiar places. And snow fell relentlessly

 

            that Winter, and Spring was late, disconcerted. Snow 

 

covered red-tiled roofs, cars, shrubs, rhododendrons, bird baths,

 

            statues of the Virgin of Lourdes, of the Virgin of Guadalupe, 

 

even fir trees and hedges. Snow muffled voices freezing the wind 

 

            brushing the Lebanese Cedar hills, concealing old carcasses, 

 

broken bones, ruins, the palace of Beit el Habib, the central square's 

 

            Martyrs' monument, bazaars swept by hatred, flakes shrouding 

 

laced arcades, façades riddled with lead graffiti, abandoned rubble. 

 

 

 

            Lulled by the vast whiteness, she no longer yearned for the

 

change of seasons, but wished to dream again. Each morning,

 

            folded in two, she would walk bent, smoothing the scar on her

 

side as if ironing a shrunken garment. At night, she'd hear a 

 

            crisscross, particles sliding against each other with each

 

move. Slowly, out of her falling eyelids, a silent, wordless presence 

 

            rocked her in a bed of rose petals. Soon, lost snow flakes

 

would melt into dew, avenues smell of lavender and tender

 

            blossoms. She dreamed of roaming the streets, a village fool

 

telling her story to stray dogs, to leaves in the trees, chasing

 

            the ones flying in the wind.