The cure
David McAleavey

for my parents

These days before the funeral, hanging on, letting the rays beam through us, pressure points, fat nodes, sites of nascence. We learned not to let the screen door slam, and were praised for it, praise now long ago.

The mournfulness in certain musics croons to us, yearns for us. To think we could have been Greek!—though then we’d be other people, and never think such thoughts, exactly. Their poor appetite would be our anorexia. Taxi, we would say, and stasis.

The salmon, Chris said, can no longer feed, when the tide flows in so fast; they hunker down among the rocks, try not to be swept away.