We could primal scream right here, Natalie said. Elbowing down Second Avenue under the no-star sky. Past the doomed mom-and-pop, soon a destination French-fry dispensary. Love so last week, school bulldozing us boring, my mother’s cancer back like a clever friend, always with the whiz-bang closing. On the dogshitted concrete skinny people leaned on each other in long fall coats, eating oily 99-cent slices, fingers intertwined, creeping vines. We tipped our heads back and screwed up our eyes like the letter “e” and screamed, bones together, voices skipping stones thrown at the capacious night. She and me. Me and she.
Edith Friedman admires the ways of people and plants, and tries not to second guess. She lives in Northern California. www.edithfriedman.com