AN UNUSUAL CANVAS She traces the grooves on his back, her face a spasm of pain; but not the pain he must have felt when his body became brutish art. Her fingers lightly graze the colors: Swelling Purple, Bloody Red, Scabby Black. When he winces, she draws away. He tells her to continue, feel the pattern, memorize it. But how could she! When the pain seeps through more than the strength, when those jagged lines mock her daringly, when the knobs on their ends stare and wink like wicked puss-filled eyes that look like they could belong to a cat with nine tails. The salt from her tears stings his cuts, but she continues. Later they lie lethargically on straw mats on a cool floor in a clay hut. She lies on her back, he on his belly, facing the brilliant red hibiscus and yellow bells he picked that day. But as he sleeps, surrounded by color, he dreams of black; no sounds, no smells, just stagnant black. She awakens to his dreamy mumblings of love and rubs the curve of her belly. Her sobs reverberate through the silence. “No cry,” he says. “But dis di only way fi mek di pain come out!” she moans. “No worry,” he says, rubbing the half-moon shaped dome below her ribs. He traces the dark line the stretched down from her navel with his fingernails and she wiggles. The baby inside, too, feels the tickle and sends forth a kick. He moves his hand away quickly, as if off a hot stovetop.
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