Her searching eyes stuck in a patch of gleam, the forward rippling ocean. Mounting the<\/p>\n
sand dunes, the man swells into a throbbing shape. Ascending the dune the man slides<\/p>\n
a smudge in his alligator boots. He struggles against the sea-grass. Hey<\/em> he calls out. The<\/p>\n puckering ocean stitching the sand into the smoke water. I like your dress<\/em> he says. Thanks <\/em><\/p>\n she says I got it on sale. He says I can\u2019t tell.<\/em> She says This fabric is itch-worthy <\/em>I<\/p>\n don\u2019t care. Grasping the sand in his wide open palms, clutching its natural pulp. The<\/p>\n woman lets her knees drip against his terse, they stare at the particles of trash who pucker<\/p>\n the shore. She says There\u2019s a dead seagull at your feet<\/em>. He says Well<\/em>. A seagull at the<\/p>\n hull of his boot where the sun beats no relief. Its limp eyes, its glass eyes, adore its misfortune<\/p>\n yes. Its body limp on the sand in a splash, crooked, bizarre. Its no-luster wings splurched<\/p>\n in a dizzy near a paper towel, coagulated in brine, struggles against the landscape the<\/p>\n woman her stethoscope scalp is hot, she spindles inside her inner-map and fine feeling<\/p>\n of granules beneath her toes, between fingers and elbows. Inside she is palpable unzipped<\/p>\n space of black and quietude the woman splashes and splashes in herself, she scrapes\u00a0<\/p>\n her oxygen against her topography, until the land scars. She\u2019s finished. Sound is zipped<\/p>\n in a plastic bag. Death as cost of exchange, the man consigns his ear close to the bird\u2019s<\/p>\n chest, his knees ajar and knocking. Heat beats in her ear like the ear of a clock. This<\/p>\n bird is still alive he speaks puckering his lips. I\u2019ll have to kill it myself to shield it from <\/em><\/p>\n a slow miserable\u2026 He stands up suddenly a harbinger, shrewd and composing a blue<\/p>\n shadow across the woman who is prostrate on the bride beach licked in litter, sun<\/p>\n drunk, her blood shouts into the edges of her levers. The man\u2019s watch slides on his<\/p>\n bulge wrist, grabbing the gull at its unbearable margins. Twisting its neck, a slow departing,<\/p>\n bones puncture bird-skin, a sickle-crunch fetters the air like perfume, a solid blue feather<\/p>\n flies off the handle body of the bird, its blood spurts in an arch, slicing the atmosphere,\u00a0its inside-heart smells like the gutter\u2019sinside, oil, ripe gasoline, car-parts, factory-lungs,<\/p>\n accidents and woman is nervous struck by its accidental blood among the perfume sewage.<\/p>\n She says, You\u2019ve pulled its head off<\/em>. The sand is speckled in a flag of blood. He says<\/p>\n I guess so. I guess I don\u2019t know my own strength<\/em>. In one hand he holds its head, in his<\/p>\n other hand its body. Can you put it back together<\/em> she says. He says I don\u2019t think <\/em><\/p>\n so<\/em>. From a distant lump, an ore smoke blows quietly from a factory. Inside the gull\u2019s pupils<\/p>\n the sun is blinking like a fume. Plop. He drops the gullparts. He drops the death at his<\/p>\n feet, and they stare. Necessary. A flare of chartreuse blood smirks on the man\u2019s shirt.<\/p>\n He looks down, says, This sucks<\/em>. He looks cold, this heat is frozen and hot. He says, I <\/em><\/p>\n need to buy some detergent.<\/em> His eyes buried inside a what. Relaxed like television, the<\/p>\n woman is strewn, elegant. We can buy some on the way home<\/em>, she nods. Laughing her<\/p>\n mouth spreads. A candy wrapper. She tastes like she burns.<\/p>\n Vanessa Saunders<\/strong> is the editor-in-chief of Helium Journal<\/em>. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she is currently an MFA candidate at LSU. She has previously been published in Stockholm Literary Review, Lighthouse Journal, Haight Ashbury Literary,<\/em> and others.<\/p>\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Her searching eyes stuck in a patch of gleam, the forward rippling ocean. Mounting the sand dunes, the man swells into a throbbing shape. Ascending the dune the man slides a smudge in his alligator boots. He struggles against the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9926],"tags":[21987],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libblogs.luc.edu\/requited\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}