We drove for miles on the weekends without seeing one tree.
Silence swelled in our laps until it dented the roof of the car, cracked open
the windows. On the side of the highway, mosquitoes picked at my face
and I didn’t bat them away, didn’t care what happened so long as it happened
to me. Have you ever, out of boredom, wished for pain? The locusts? The frogs
coming out of the river in droves? A little suffering is good for you,
my mother likes to say when the power goes out. Without it, we wouldn’t know
light or relief. That summer, the ferries so gave in to the waves,
they had to chain down the tables, the bags, even the staff, lest they went
up in flight. I ran all the way to the pier just to swim in my dress.
The big blue howled its patient howl.