Why is it always up to me to pour the olive oil from the 3-liter tin into the smaller bottle? To wash out the butter dish and place a new stick on the tray? It’s all these messy things I’m left to do, as if I were the only one with nimble fingers and the knowing where supplies are kept.
I vacuum up the salt that’s fallen from his pretzels beneath the cushion of his leather chair. I dust the pile of magazines that have expired. It’s silent in the house, as if these things like laundry need be done alone. As if the whispers of the day should not intrude upon the solitude of daily, weekly, we’ve-run-out-of-this-or-that chores and checks to write for heat and electricity.
I tsk my tongue in wonder, then remember; he’s really left for good this time.
Susan Gibb is a reader, has-been publisher and editor, and writer of fiction and poetry in various form. Her work has appeared in The New River Review, elimae, Bewildering Stories, The Blue Print Review, and fourpaperletters among other fine literary journals.
I vacuum up the salt that’s fallen from his pretzels beneath the cushion of his leather chair. I dust the pile of magazines that have expired. It’s silent in the house, as if these things like laundry need be done alone. As if the whispers of the day should not intrude upon the solitude of daily, weekly, we’ve-run-out-of-this-or-that chores and checks to write for heat and electricity.
I tsk my tongue in wonder, then remember; he’s really left for good this time.
Susan Gibb is a reader, has-been publisher and editor, and writer of fiction and poetry in various form. Her work has appeared in The New River Review, elimae, Bewildering Stories, The Blue Print Review, and fourpaperletters among other fine literary journals.
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