from A Fixed, Formal Arrangement
by Allison Carter
from
Section One
In Your Spare Time
Husband
My husband, doctor, his glassy eye, effervescent, a
hook on a mirror, spent all year hoarding small codes,
“Get over here,” loves medium-sized dogs, me,
says, “Promise me there is a chance that my being
around will make you feel better,” I promise, then we
get on an airplane, land, arrive in Los Angeles with
a broken, Broken, and he takes my hand, strangely,
I have no fingers, “This hand,” he explains, “is
nailed, its circumference,” and I can’t see out, “the
veins,” he explains, but I really can’t see out, our
productivity, copped, there’s fog, multiplicative, his
expertise, dripping, and I love my Husband, Husband,
Husband,
from
Section Two
Garages
Garage Apartment #4
I saw that you opened your mouth. Now there were
three places: school, the rec room, and your mouth. I
spun the bottle to role-play an easier mode of chance.
I hadn’t invited anyone else in. No one else had asked.
I think that is the point of what I’m telling you. These
days I wake up. My parents have forgotten to go to the
store again. I have no milk for my breakfast. I pull on
sweatpants that express my limbs. The sweats apologize
over and over, looping cracks. In the mirror I see new
outlines of my circumcision. Maybe I am seeing the
new room that’s invented by my penis standing out
from my legs. I still haven’t invited anyone else. No
one has asked. It’s true, my thinking, but sometimes I
get tripped up. So are we good? After you left I went
in to eat. At the dinner table I felt a breeze before the
collision. My mother told me to stop entering rooms
as if I could already flip to the subtexts. When her
hand was done with slapping it left a sucky vacuum.
Part of me fell in and was gone. Some things are just
so unpredictable. But the sucky vacuum had a point.
I realized I must have been thinking completely about
you again. I felt so humiliated. I closed my mouth
tight. I resolved to tell you exactly what happened
there. I resolved to tell you exactly how I felt.
[continues in A Fixed, Formal Arrangement]