A Field in Wyoming by Michael Peck
What can love be but the mounting suspicion that we shall someday lose it? It is the absence of fear contained in a gesture, a wink, a face contracting in hatred, and the warm breath of the overworked nostrils. Before the gun went off I saw the grimace on her lips, and felt the tepid air of her body, accompanied with the vacuous eyes of the murderer.
I know that I have lost, the sins are gone, and the fear lessens. The two of us are standing in a dusty field in Wyoming. The grass is softer here, much softer than grass in the east. It forms around the contours of your shoes and when you shift anxiously, the grass beneath the shoe with more weight seems to be dragging you into the earth.
“Say something worthwhile,” she said. The gun gives this woman, like all of humanity, a sadistic confidence in the act, and also some courage for the uncertain future.
“What shall I say?” I asked.
“Anything that comes to mind. Recite something you cherish from a book you can’t live without.”
Nothing came to mind.
“I love you,” I said, for lack of anything better. The fear of disconnection gripped me. Had past love already presented itself in the form of this woman? Was it too late to be saved? So diverse is the fear within love that we cannot summarize its innumerable culminations; this one is merely its final variation.
“I love you too.” The statement was genuine.
Foreseeing this death in every remark she made, in each promise, and in the many parts that defined our love, I never imagined Wyoming, or its lush fields, or the outline of my body when it lands in this unmemorable landscape. The tale of my fear becomes suspended in the place where the bullet finds me. The poem of absolute loss has yet to be written. And the day falls with me.
I know that I have lost, the sins are gone, and the fear lessens. The two of us are standing in a dusty field in Wyoming. The grass is softer here, much softer than grass in the east. It forms around the contours of your shoes and when you shift anxiously, the grass beneath the shoe with more weight seems to be dragging you into the earth.
“Say something worthwhile,” she said. The gun gives this woman, like all of humanity, a sadistic confidence in the act, and also some courage for the uncertain future.
“What shall I say?” I asked.
“Anything that comes to mind. Recite something you cherish from a book you can’t live without.”
Nothing came to mind.
“I love you,” I said, for lack of anything better. The fear of disconnection gripped me. Had past love already presented itself in the form of this woman? Was it too late to be saved? So diverse is the fear within love that we cannot summarize its innumerable culminations; this one is merely its final variation.
“I love you too.” The statement was genuine.
Foreseeing this death in every remark she made, in each promise, and in the many parts that defined our love, I never imagined Wyoming, or its lush fields, or the outline of my body when it lands in this unmemorable landscape. The tale of my fear becomes suspended in the place where the bullet finds me. The poem of absolute loss has yet to be written. And the day falls with me.
Michael Peck was born in upstate NY, and began writing soon thereafter. His short stories and poetry have appeared in The Rittenhouse Revue, 34th Parallel, and Unquiet Desperation among others. At the moment Mr. Peck reviews books for Alors et Toi. He resides in Philadelphia.
