Were They So Comely

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERACast-iron stove on the sidewalk. Pans in the snow. I’m looking up at our balcony. How’d she get the stove over the railing?

She’s throwing away my cooking supplies. My saffron’s in the gutter. She took the caps off the turmeric and cayenne and waved the bottles like glow sticks. She must’ve, because the snow’s stained red and yellow in arcs.

She used a lot of Elizabethan idioms. In bed she’d make me talk about other girls. After I gave her the rundown, she’d ask: Were they as apple-cheeked as I? Were they so comely?

How do you answer that?

 

Christian Hayden lives and writes in Chicago, IL. He is the winner of the 2013 William Richey Short Fiction Contest. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Word Riot, Yemassee, and DOGZPLOT.

Photo credit: David Strom

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