Daily Dose

From Radish King, by Rebecca Loudon

THE DEAD-DOG SCENT OF LILACS ON THE LAST DAY IN APRIL

"It's rainging. Oil rises on the street and bats flap in my cherry tree, little broken umbrellas. I peel an egg. My hands reek of gasoline, the smell leaking into the albumen as I tear shell into the sink. There is something under the porch, a rot, or sleek animals chewing, chewing. I'm alone in a body that doesn't remember. On the telecision a woman is blindfolded. A man shaves her legs and she says spätzle, flank, saw, into the camera. Later, I imagine his tongue on the rubber parts, licking the raw skin, soothing her. I think his hair is the color of chestnuts. I want to put my lips on the back of his neck, at the point where the skin is shaved pink. This, then, is my small, hard salad: corn, corn silk, yolk, something like a blindfold, something like a soft black cloth over my eyes."