We dance under an almost-full moon, wearing only mud. Dancing by moonlight sounds like grace and ecstasy, but my skin itches; the river-silt must be crawling with microscopic bugs. My toe’s bloody from a collision with a treeroot. Bits of dried mud break off and patter on the forest floor as I blunder about. Mary’s a wood-sprite, darting and tigerish. Places Mary led and I didn’t follow: spliffs at fifteen, blowjobs at sixteen, backpacking in the Far East after school. The solid milestones I reached – good degrees, a good marriage, children, financial security – Mary skimmed past or cannoned off, landing in ditches. The ditches weren’t all metaphorical; she’d track mud into our house, leave footprints on the parquet, and smears on the Egyptian cotton sheets. What’s a bit of dirt between friends? Mary said, but after she left I’d bleach and disinfect and polish. What the fuck have I been doing for the last thirty years? The cry for help should have been Mary’s, but it was mine. And Mary answered. Itching in places I didn’t know could itch, I stumble round the clearing. Then Mary spins by, through bars of misty light, and I’m spinning too.
The Pine Cone Review 