The tea was made from aromatic cedar fronds and melted snow. It was her favorite kind of tea. There was something about the water that was swirled through the heavens, frozen, scooped up, and boiled with cedar.
Why couldn’t he bear down and concentrate? Because he was scared, that’s why.
Words The word used for ejaculation – baashkizige – is also used for shooting off a gun. The word used for condom – biinda’oojigan – means gun case. Millie entered these words into her notebook. Fascinating.
As they plodded along, the golden radiance intensified until it seemed to emanate from every feature of the land.
Thomas had tried to educate himself, mainly by reading everything he could find. When he needed to calm his mind, he opened a book. Any book. He had never failed to feel refreshed, even if the book was no good.
The world was tender with significance. “Onizhishin, so beautiful,” Patrice murmured.
I heard your looking for your sis. My cousin lives in the Cities. She saw her and wrote to you – with her L hand because she broke her R finger pointing out my faults. That’s Genevieve for you. Watch the mail.
And Patrice thought another thing her mother said was definitely true – you never really knew a man until you told him you didn’t love him.
What we’re living through is either unreal or too real.
The cold sap was a spring tonic. When you drank it, you shared the genius of the woods.
Missing only the prefix. The ex.
Patrice leaned to one side and put her ear to the trunk of a birch tree. She could hear the humming rush of the tree drinking from the earth. She closed her eyes, went through the bark like water, and was sucked up off the bud tips into a cloud.
In the newspapers, the author of the proposal had constructed a cloud of lofty words around this bill – emancipation, freedom, equality, success – that disguised its truth: termination. Termination. Missing only the prefix. The ex.
The jittery focus, the devastated shelves, a couple of fights breaking out over paper towels, a swarm descending on an employee trying to restock toilet paper, madness in people’s eyes – it was like the beginning of every show where the streets empty and some grotesque majestic entity emerges from mist or fire.
The warm metal, the gentle ridges, the rounded feminine base of the cap, were pleasant to hold.
She was just glad he hadn’t come back to life, which did make her sad. How sad it was not to be sad.
I suppose you could say this delights us although ‘delight’ is a word I rarely use. Delight seems insubstantial; happiness feels more grounded; ecstasy is what I shoot for; satisfaction is hardest to attain.
We’re from here,” said Thomas. He thought awhile, drank some tea. “Think about this. If we Indians had picked up and gone over there and killed most of you and took over your land, what about that? Say you had a big farm in England. We camp there and kick you off. What do you say?
She didn’t use any makeup but lipstick, a bright carmine red that emphasized everything she said.
And so we sat there. Two haunted women. And one unhaunted baby trailing clouds of glory.