Divorce

The house stood still like a horse, big eyes ablink, in the unknowing few moments before a shot.No one came out and no one went inside. The inhabitants of the house, a family, sat together around a wooden picnic table painted white.The father sat in his sadness, which was pale yellow and pooled around him like a yolk.Words stayed over on the neighbor’s doorstep, where they pecked at the rice thrown out for the birds.Adulthood feels like opening a door only to find a severed hand, and then to realize it is your own.He sat in his sadness, which is to say, he felt his tongue swell, and it muted his words.A finger depressed the trigger. The horse fell hard into the wall.Adulthood feels like a severed hand because one must have such control, yet one has very little.The mother sat with her hands clasped, fingers like lines of conjecture in a history book.Even admission or confession does not make a statement true.The word “love” and its negation cut a hole through the house the shape of a bullet.The children buried their faces in their knees, pressed their palms into red eyes.The blood of the horse soaked through three mops.Guests had always admired the house’s lashes. They said what big eyes, how much you must see.