Nesting
The brown recluse is about the size of a quarter and looks absurdly ordinary given how poisonous it is. Its venom is necrotic, and bites can be fatal. Pest control advised us to shake out sheets and coat sleeves before use. They also told us that one of the spider’s telltale features is a dark, violin-shaped mark on its carapace. Then they defined carapace.
I lean down to see if this one bears the mark, but it darts into a crack at the bottom of the doorframe before I’m close enough to see.
My wife and I shrug it off, reassuring ourselves that it was probably something else, something harmless. That it was the size of a nickel.
evening light
the time it takes to assemble
her crib
Plastic
I’ve never liked my name. It’s too liquid, too sibilant, too accommodating. It feels like it belongs to another kind of girl altogether, one who’s better at being a girl than I am, who’s mastered the vital skills of putting on eye makeup and smiling the right amount at the right people. The girl my name belongs to would never fritter away her time the way I do, alphabetizing things and complaining to inanimate objects and making up interesting lies using advanced vocabulary words.
in a state of deshabille
I wish I had a name made of sterner stuff, with harder consonants and more assertive vowels. And that girl my name belongs to— she’s probably embarrassed to share a name with the likes of me. So why don’t I give my name back to her and find my own?
astride a tree fork
The fact is, I’ve never figured out exactly who I am. Every other name I try on also seems to belong to another specific type of girl who is not me. Katherine? Emily? Jane? Penelope? Closer . . . but no, I’ve never felt ready to declare that one of those girls is who I am. What if I’m wrong?
Wouldn’t it be worse to give myself a wrong name than to be given one by someone else?
headless Barbie