The darkness brought on a deep spring-longing. As the night world woke up and the
bugs gathered in her porch light, she sat watching, for no real reason, in the car. Some
slow song had come on the radio and captured the mood she was trying to avoid - that
creeping in and longing for something more passionate and more alive.
     "What is growing to love someone?" she thought. "I want it to slide in like a puzzle
piece and move like a slinky down never ending stair-steps." She craved a variety of
passion that seemed extinct.
     The song wasn't over yet, but it was an issue of power; she won and turned the knob
with a slow, deliberate click. Yet, even the stroking of her own hands through her hair
wouldn't stir her mind from the seductive depression that the notes left behind.
     The wind spoke to her longing, and it smelled like decay ? blunt and wet, like rotting
sticks uncovered by melting snow. Something had gone to sleep inside of her, or maybe it
had just walked out when the first wave of spring air moved in. She spread her fingers
around the wet label of a beer, her foot unconsciously rubbing against her bare leg.
Lori Ohnemus

Kater Murr's Press, London, 1998.  Edition of 200 copies.
Copyright - Lori Ohnemus, 1998