ON MONDAY YOU LOVE ME. On Tuesday the rain hurts your knee. On Wednesday your curls start to go limp, and you say how can people live like this? On Thursday you say you need to go out for a while and when you don’t come back, I look for you under the car, on top of the house, behind the barn door. On Friday you are still gone so I keep looking, this time in the hay loft, next to the barbed wire fence with the black cow and her baby (the one with the perfectly white face as if she peeked into a pail of milk), in the sunflower pasture, riding the tractor, running through the lower field with your shoes off, until I find you asleep in the long, dry grass with dragonflies drinking the sweat off your arms. On Saturday you thrash and spit how dare I, you were fine, you don’t need anyone, much less someone like me who steals from you and lies, who is nothing without you as I feed you bananas because the phone line nurse says they are packed with potassium and whisper it’s not your fault and press folded wet washcloths on your forehead. On Sunday you look at me with one thousand-year-old eyes and say you’re sorry it won’t happen again, for real this time. On Monday you love me. •





Lisa Thornton is a writer and nurse. She has stories in SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, and other magazines. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and Best Small Fictions. She lives in Illinois.

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