Photo by Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash
by Francine Witte
When you come home late again, leaf-patched and pine-scented from the other woman you think I don’t know about, I forgive you. I don’t ask questions, instead I make you cocoa and watch the creamy marshmallows flatten and dissolve. As you drink the cocoa, not knowing I forgave you because I didn’t say it out loud, I wait for your next predictable move – to shower off the pine-scent, the lovestink of the other woman you think I don’t know about. When you are in the shower, your happy song streaming from the bathroom, the happy part lost as it reaches my ears, I count to three, to ten, to a hundred. I decide a candle will soften the room, wrap you towel-like in its glow, and so I strike a match, light the candle, and I hold it up to that spot in the bathroom doorway you will fill in any minute now. I watch it start to burn.
Francine Witte’s latest book of flash fiction is Radio Water (Roadside Press.) Her forthcoming book of poetry is Some Distant Pin of Light. She is flash fiction editor of SoFloPoJo and Flash Boulevard. She lives in New York City. Visit her website at francinewitte.com
