I found you here, trespassing, an aura of abandonment
surrounding you.
It didn’t take long.
You had strength on your side, I was afraid and weak.
I remember it was all so simple.
Mechanical.
It was as if it had happened before – you and me. But I
suppose it hadn’t really. You left, I think, loping along,
crashing through the foliage and I could hear you crying to
yourself – What have I done? What have I done?

He used to hold my hand under the apple tree. His palms
melting into mine.
Clammy hands.
Wringing out his sweat into me.
I never liked these handholding escapades.
But I tolerated them.
He once, bravened by the falling apple blossoms, blazened by
the power of momentarily dry hands, lunged forward – his soggy
lips parted and hovered near my face.
I swallowed the sickness rising in my throat and allowed it.
Immediately his hand was clammy again.
I washed my hands a lot in that time.
It pleased my father to see me conscious of my appearance. My
mother, however, was angered:
What was I hiding?
Nothing.
It was just that I feared getting his athletes hand.
That’s what I called it.
She used to stand and watch us while washing up, so there was
not even a hope of hiding from her.
Not that I wanted to.
I don’t even think he did.
We did a good job of hiding from each other though.
I can’t remember him ever talking to me.
"May I see her tomorrow, Sir?"
"May we go into the garden, Ma’am?"
"Is it alright if I marry her?"
Yes…yes…yes…yes.
They feared my being one of the abandoned ones, I suppose.
I was, how did they put it?
Tainted goods.
Unwanted by men.
Though only they knew about you.
They had been looking for me for two hours before finding me
Entangled in the creepers, bloody – but unbruised, I think.
We never spoke of you.
I thought about you a lot though.
You had taken me.
I worried about you then.
I was pained at thinking of the life you must have led to do
That.
What had hurt you to make you hurt me?
We married.
Me and him.
Him and I.
Joined forever to him and his soggy hands, lips… who knows
what else.
I fell pregnant.
I don’t remember it happening, but it must have, somewhere
Between the hand-washing and thinking of you.
It was a boy, I think.
He was proud and took over completely at once.
I didn’t mind much.
More children came, again I don’t remember.
He must have sneeked up on me in his clamminess while I was in
Thought.
All boys, I think.
Maybe some girls.
But I doubt it.
They spent their days fishing with him.
I remember that time well.
The house was all mine, except for the occasional gutting of a puny fish.
The smell of fish was strong in the house then.
It clung to him and my hands, no matter how hard I scrubbed.
Then an empty silence came, taking away the stench.
The children left, I think.
His voice grew soggy now too.
Bronchial coughs of phlegm and blood shook him.
I was dry though.
And glad of it.
His clammy hands, weakened, didn’t come near me.
His body melted into piles of sheets and cushions until there
was nothing left to melt.
I washed the sheets over and over, but they still came out
Soggy; in the end I burnt them.
I remember you sometimes.
How you cried.
How you did, but didn’t.
Take me, I mean.
I suppose I don’t really mind.
He did the same.
More than once.
He never asked either.
Never spoke.
But it’s you that I remember.
Not him.
It’s you.
I understand you.
You are solid.
You weren’t clammy.
You won’t melt away.