hilary vaughn dobel

hilary vaughn dobel year one

It wasn’t summer but we decided it should be. I wore the blue dress, then a white one, and was too worldly to suppose myself a different person. What is love, however troubled, to the sweep of someone telling you they see what you hoped they would see, to hold that in their sights even as it harms or hunts them. It was hubris to say I would stay unchanged until it was too late, the belief I was sufficient for my own limited purpose, my litany of small and careless refusals that brought me to this cliff’s edge wondering if the hills behind me ever made the sound of joy when the wind bustled through them. But you were there beneath me all that time in the white chalk of the earth that crumbled as it tried to bear me up.

75

two weeks later

For the fourth morning in a row the TV was on when I rolled downstairs. The kitchen door unlocked. I imagine only the implications. And now, sunset. The sky cutting out

the rooflines’ many eccentric hats with its X-Acto knife, the sky keeping back from me and the baseball bat I hold in a stance only partially rehearsed.

I am not a deliberate killer but credible sources tell me it takes less than one might think. The night, bounded, holding itself delicate as a cheekful of champagne, the silence

awkward and prolonged as childhood. Tell me it isn’t like this, isn’t intimate, the living and the dead aligned like lying beside someone close enough that every instant you’re not touching is a choice.

76 raleigh review