I am in a forest clearing, by which I mean I am in a parking lot, awaiting my lover’s return from the RadioShack. The birds are in song and someone sneezes on a loop by the dumpster. I’ve cranked back my passenger seat for a better view of the sky through the windshield. The clouds will break or perhaps the rain will come, but either way, I am alone and engulfed by verdant calm. Some might say I cannot live without assurances that I garner from patient men who have tragically lost their mothers. But I am patient. I am the patient one. Look at me! I am a highly skilled person and my lover is interested in purchasing drones. I am constantly trying to recite Tennyson above the whir of a small, horrible motor. I’ve swallowed capsules only to learn that each contains a micro-camera by which my lover might surveil my insides. How is this possible? I suppose the answer is love. Or terror that blooms with age. In the heart of a nearby copse, a deer family shudders for fear of being spotted. The fawn hides between her mother’s legs. What if the fawn were to bound through the open window and into our car’s backseat? Would she allow me to raise her in the garage that we share with the neighbors? Would she learn to be named? Does a mother deer mourn? Anyway, what I hear is either distant thunder or a pulled roller shutter securing a business entrance. The car darkens. I could sleep lightly. I intuit that the clouds do not part, and likewise the rain does not come.
