ANTHUS
dream, but I didn’t want to wake. Not to my reality, driving along a narrow gravel road around the cliff — one misplaced stone from hurtling to the deep blue — next to someone I have never spoken to; someone I do not know. * * * The bruises on his arm are still beautiful. The purples and blues have freshly risen to the surface of his skin, early enough for the rotted greens and yellows to have not yet polluted them. The red is still slowly encroaching on the shores of the purple blood lakes beneath the flesh. I have to look away. Those thoughts would ruin the beauty — it’s better to think of them as being painted on, delicately, than the reality, he was beaten until they were drawn to the surface. I don’t have many alternatives for what to look at. My choices are his bruises — their true nature intruding on my musings — or the window — this view not nearly as interesting as those from my dream. This cliff face is a drab slate of stone. Absent are the mosses and wildflowers peeking from the crevices, the birds perched and singing their lighthearted melodies, and the occasional flares of light 50
