The Possession of Alba Díaz

by Isabel Cañas

There were gods here, once. Maybe we ate them.

This had to be a dream. Let it not be a nightmare.

She was white sheets on a line, drying in pure sunlight, snapping in the wind.

How tragic, to be so ensorcelled by someone whose whole heart was steel and ambition, with no room for soft touch. How pathetic, to be the two of them, soul-broken and quiet in the twilight.

“I will not be cured,” she said.

“But neither will I be caged.”