Table for two, please
by Gianna Valdez
The ground above a grave is unsteady so the dirt begs you to sit down. Body moves into itself—a child on the alphabet rug, the legs as a pretzel and the hands grasp onto grass. Gentle, now. Be gentle with these strands of hair. Straight instead of curly but they smell of her shampoo. You chew on Juicy Fruit gum until there is no taste left to soften the sour of the salt water tears, and your skin swallows part of the Atlantic Ocean. The rest falls onto her hair. There are two people with you, sitting on her scalp and it is heavy now. Too heavy. The ground is still shaking so you ask to be left alone because they like to laugh but you need to cry and try to understand this one idea that will not die. The inverse operation of a broken light bulb and the new bulb is lost somewhere between the straitjacket and the limbs. The wind or the Atlantic starts swinging you back and forth like the holy water sprayed by the priest. Something is wrong here. The mathematicians are wrong. Coffins can be big enough for two, but are not made for sharing, for building a home from the wood and singing softness into its walls. Coffins are not beds so you are still crying but now the air stings, feels the way her hand did when you held it for the last time. Soft. Lifeless. Cold. You wonder if it is cold under the dirt. You think of the dead. The dead sleep alone. No hands to tuck them into bed, pull the blanket over tighter to keep them warm. They lay in the dark, the cobwebbed corners of the end. You rip off one of the flowers from the bouquet you brought along and keep it. It is for her birthday but attempts to reach the grave. Orpheus walking back with Eurydice. You hug your body and you fist the earth, the grass and dirt, trying to get to the woman underneath. Trying to walk with faith, to live with even a fraction of her grace, but the story always ends one way. No song is heard here. No whispers. No footsteps. The remaining space inside the coffin only smiles innocently—a third-grader with a missing tooth, who doesn’t yet understand death, but does know math. They are given this problem: There are two seats left on the train. Someone sits in one seat. Then the train leaves early. What’s wrong here? You could have fit one more, they say. Why didn’t you fit one more? You wonder about this at your table for two.