Strange Foliage

The house alone, silent windows peering through our branches. The house ends the search and goes to sleep, eyes lidded with blinds. In the stillness, we lean against one another. The house heaves a mechanical snore. We flick glances with our many eyes, stretch our thin bodies towards the moonlight. The door cracks down on its frame. We do not breathe. The woman does not breathe, either. The house murmurs, the heavy figure in the bedroom turning over in his sleep. The woman pads across our leaf litter. We relax. Crowd around her, fold her in between our slim figures. Become still. The house is not an early riser. The woman, stumbling, dragging her roots, finds the road. The sun blinks the clouds out of its eyes, marvels at our dew-drenched leaves, our veins. The woman weeps at the view. Her white arms like small twigs. Dark purple. Deep blue. Raw red. A tinge of yellow. Her own strange foliage.

Filed under: Fiction