Sponge, warm, soft-pitted, white across her rib cage, dripping down, washing, rising to the quiet breasts, smoothing across red nipples, raising them, white-bubbled water sliding down the cleavage, bubbles popping on the pale skin like tiny kisses.

White bath towels underneath her, between her spine and the white bed sheet, so the bed, her coffin twenty-four hours each day, stays dry.

Sponge, white across her shoulder blades, wiping them soapy, clean, then sliding above the blades, where her head would normally be.

Cleaning the tops of her shoulders, slipping the sponge off the edge of each upper arm, rubbing the soft soapy pocks into each armpit, cleaning.

Now her lower body.

Sponge, lathered again with the bar of white soap, polishing her stomach, his right index finger pushing down one corner to dig softly into her belly button. His hand at her right knee, spreading her thighs apart, so his sponge can gently scrub between her legs.

Both hands on the sponge, like a rung on a ladder, holding it over the large glass bowl on the carpet by the side of the bed, wringing out soapy water.

As always, her naked body seems larger than it should. If the body had a head, the head would look disproportionately small.  Both hands on the sponge, holding it over the large glass bowl, wringing out soapy water. A body without a head doesn't try to pose in a way flattering to its shape. Doesn't draw in its stomach. Just lies there, heart beating, blood traveling the same rush over and over.

When the body's clean, he gets in bed with her.  No lips to kiss, no eyes to look into, no ears to hear what he might say, so he keeps his mouth to himself, shifts his stare, doesn't talk.

His thumb and index finger pinch her left nipple. Headless body stirring, a tremor deep, deep down in the earth. A pinch to the other nipple, and the miles-distant rumble of thunder across dark, swaying treetops.

In the midst of his horrible molestations of her he found that physically stimulating her body long enough, painfully enough, would cause her cunt to moisten. Moisten enough. He didn't want to put an artificial lubricant up inside her. Vaseline on the top pad of his right index finger, he whorled his sticky fingerprint across her clitoris, left right, up down, then spelling out, jointed finger flexing, I,l,o,v,e,y,o,u.

Sliding his cock up inside her.

Lying on top of her, stomach to stomach, reaching behind to grab her calves, pull them inwards, in a clumsy criss-cross, over the small of his back.  But once he started pumping, they fell off, heavy thumps of sole. Early on, he had considered rubber-banding her ankles together behind him, to keep that warm embrace around his waist, but he just couldn't.

Each time he makes love to her, he tries to block what he's doing. All he asks is that slick friction takes over at some point, so he'll be able to have another humiliating ejaculation.
No hair to smell, so he keeps his nose to himself.

Afterwards, each time, ashamed in the bathroom, urinating, he knows he can never forgive himself for what he's doing; and that he will be doing it again, in another three or four days.
Once he lasted five days.


Her floating head, when it spoke to him, never mentioned the molestations.

Was it unaware?

Probably.

When the head spoke, it was never a conversation.

The talking head would speak, then after a pause-- or interjecting-- his voice. He spoke out loud, while walking through their rooms, or pulling down the front door of the oven to check his dinner, or lifting the lid on the curbside garbage can to drop in a plastic bag, or raising the heel of her left foot to clip her toe nails.

--I woke up this morning and forgot for a minute my dad is dead.

"I remember when I first met your dad. I wore that gray suit we bought for my job interviews?  Do you remember?"

--Poor little Finn. Such a loving cat. I'm glad we let him die at home, lying in bed between us. He had a rough life before we found him. Remember the vet said the cut on his ear might have been from some neighborhood kids cutting him with a pair of scissors? How did our world get this way?

"I was nervous about meeting him, even though I was in my mid-twenties back then. And he kept calling me by your ex-boyfriend's name." Dusting, with the fingers of his hand, an empty shelf in the living room; pulling out of a kitchen drawer a pot holder to lift out his dinner; putting the lid back on the garbage can, dogs barking; tears falling on her toes. "Was that just forgetfulness, do you think, or was he being passive-aggressive?  I know he did bond with your ex over sports, which I never had any interest in, but over time, he seemed to prefer me. I always thought."

--I never thought irises had any scent, and then that one morning, out in our garden, to fill the bird feeders, all those excited bird sounds in the tree tops, in the hedges, you said, smell one!  And I did.  And they do have a scent, like you said. Vanilla. I never would have known, except for you.

"Our second day there, after breakfast, steak and eggs your mom made, because the four of us had been drinking heavily the night before, and she said we needed a lot of protein, to get rid of our hangovers. And that afternoon your dad and me played cards. Gin rummy. While you and your mom talked and laughed on the other side of the living room, in the sunlight.  And after the cards are dealt, by your father, I noticed he immediately started rearranging the cards in his fan, obviously putting suits together, pairs, something someone would normally never do in a card game, because it gives a hint of your hand, and I thought, This is an innocent man. An honest man. So I guess he wasn't being passive-aggressive.  He was just forgetful."


"Any changes?"

He shut the front door behind her. "No, not really."

The home health nurse, not dressed in a white nurse's uniform, just street clothes, blue jeans and a red sweater, waiting out of courtesy for him to lead the way to the back bedroom.

"It's raining in the city."

He has his hands in his pockets. "We usually get it twenty minutes later."   The small talk people make when they don't know each other that well.

Intravenous tube leading down to a hard syringe head in the left forearm. He had been trained by Ramona on how to pull the sharp point out, reinsert it under the skin, piercing a wobbly vein. The hours he would spend, sitting by the side of the bed, like an old man, sunlit curtains behind him, watching the liquid nutrients lower within the high-hanging clear plastic bag, spiraling drip by transparent drip down the curling tube, into her body.  Drips like the water that used to spray down on her joyous, closed-eyed face from the showerhead, palms by her temples, mouth open, rivulets down the curves of her naked body, when she used to be able to stand, and wash herself.
 
Ramona knelt down beside the bed.  Slid her hand under his wife's body, his wife's hips lifting as the nurse's palm swept underneath from lower back to mid-thigh. Checking to see if his wife was lying in urine or feces.  Smelled her fingers as she withdrew them. Pulled the front of his wife's flowered pajama top up, exposing her belly. Pulled the pajama pants down, to her knees. Standing, looked down at his wife's bare body. Pulled the pajamas back down, up. "You've been keeping her clean."

"I wash her every day."

She lifted the long white tape from the machine on the right side of the bed, pulling lengths of it through her hand, reading, allowing the reviewed length to spool on the carpet.

She had a nice smile. At times like this, a smile can get you through the day. And halfway through the long nights. "How are you holding up?"

"Okay. You know."

Thin hand reaching out, squeezing his forearm. "It's not easy, right?"

He wanted to cry, and felt instinctively she was someone he could cry in front of, she was trained for these situations, or maybe just naturally empathetic, she'd hold him, talk to him, but he didn't.  "Like you said. Go with the flow."

"Only way to do it. I brought my lunch. Chicken liver sandwiches. There's enough here for the both of us. Have you eaten yet?"


He's sitting up in bed next to her body, end of the day, chores done, his bedside lamp on, reading. Not aloud, because she wouldn't be able to hear. He used to read poetry to her. They'd weep beer and vodka tears.  Would try to get her to read a poem out loud, but she'd always shake her head, shy. "You read."

"Neither - would be absolved/neither would be a Queen/Without the other - therefore/We perish -/though we reign." 

He bought her body a pair of frilly pink panties. Zigged the leg holes up her slim calves, zagged them over her knees, which he pushed together to make his life easier, reaching under the weight of her thighs to tug the pinkness up, long leg muscles in motion, like embracing arms, up until snug against her quiet cunt. Leaned back in his sitting position on their bed, to see what he had done. But it just made him sad. She didn't know she was wearing them.

After so many months, it is what you try.

They no longer argued.

Those wonderful moments, the hugs, chin lifted, "I believe in you", warm tears, hands on shoulders, but then, the insect browning the red flower bud, memories, the smack of the ugly word, past midnight, both of you swaying from drink, retreating from the other, hunched, awful crying jags, finding each other in closets, and it takes so long, so long, to fade those words, holding, erasing, rubbing, erasing, but still the indelible blur of those words stay, stay forever. Sad music, but there's nothing noble about it.

Hurdles and tiredness of trying to get things done, because now you have to do everything yourself. No longer, I'll call the plumber if you call the internet provider.  Only you listening to elevator music on the telephone while everything descends.  And once a recorded message is left, only you can answer the call back, so no showering, going outside, or urinating down the hall. You wait, by the phone, by the headless body.

Bang of a bird against one of their window panes. Startled her, always.  Sometimes a gray smudge on the glass pane. Him pulling the drapes to one side, checking, to relieve her worry.  "It's okay. It was just stunned. It fell to the ground, but it flew back up into the air."  Usually lying. The duty of a good husband, like taking out the garbage, killing insects.

Sponge, warm and soft-pitted, white across her rib cage, dripping down, washing, rising to the quiet breasts, smoothing across red nipples that remain unaroused, white-bubbled water sliding down the cleavage, bubbles popping like tiny kisses.

Sponge, all that's left now between them, their only connection, warm and soaking.

White bath towels underneath her, between her spine and the white bed sheet, so the bed, her coffin twenty-four hours each day, stayed dry.

Sponge, white across her shoulder blades, wiping them soapy, clean, then sliding above the blades, all the way up her throat, which swallows in reaction, up to her jaw, polishing, then finally, carefully, don't want to get any soap in her mouth or eyes, over her face, looking down as he cleans, her features sliding left right, up down, as he wipes, slack, nonresponsive.

Tip of his right index finger tracing in the soap across her forehead, I,l,o,v,e,y,o,u.

They were in a neighborhood that wasn't familiar to them. Holding in their hands photographs they found in his dad's house, flipping through all these pictures his dad took, hoping to recognize something in the pictures that matched a house, a tree, a mailbox, a front lawn in this neighborhood.  But nothing. They met in the middle of the narrow, sloping street, white dog wandering the sidewalk. Her standing in front of him, shorter, eyebrows rising. "Sorry."  Made a sad face. Touched his shirt buttons. "I know you were hopeful."

"Well…"

Even though they were disappointed, they were nevertheless in a good mood. They tried to find his dad, they'd look again tomorrow, but for now, they could go back to their home, be alone with each other.  They had rib eye steaks to grill on their back patio, and small bags of different types of fresh lettuce for a tossed salad. Sometimes, you just feel like a salad.

He took the photographs from her, combining them with his, both palms tapping their askew sides, trying to pat them into some kind of order, to fit them back inside the manila envelope.

Looked up, saw she was walking towards a short stone wall at the rear of a house's lawn. Probably thinking it'd be a short cut to get back to their car.

As he walked towards her, to join her, she climbed over the wall.

Him on the lawn side of the wall.

Her sweet face on the other side of the wall, happy smirk under an apple tree. "Look how beautiful it is here!"

He climbed over the wall.

She took a further step, disappeared downwards.

He ran over, backing up, arms windmilling.

She must have gotten disoriented. Didn't realize the wall was built on the edge of a cliff.

As he looked over the edge, he saw her falling, screaming.

Fifty feet.

He had no idea how to get down there quickly. No idea what the street down there was named, to call 911. Had no idea he was keening.

For a moment he considered dropping off the cliff himself, probably the only way to get to her before she died.

But he didn't.

And she didn't die.

Just one wrong step. Just one! Out of all the millions of steps she had made before.

Sponge, most of the soap wrung out, soft surface running gently across her forehead. Him looking down on this quiet Saturday afternoon for some sign she knows it's him, or if she doesn't, that she at least appreciates, physically, being washed.

But there's nothing.

Both hands on the sponge, holding it over the large glass bowl on the carpet by the side of the bed, wringing out soapy water.

All that's left.

Sponge.