Any Man

by Amber Tamblyn

The Decade of Dawning by Donald Ellis Dedicated to the life and memory of Michael Parker. A year goes by. Two. Five. Every unanswered season spins an ocean of apparitions inside you. Ghosts crash like phantom waves, breaking your mind, a limp swimmer who floats landless. A new spring sets in, unsettling your senses, piercing the mud with needled stems, shoving life and its living in your face, making your heart glitter black as a moon’s thought. Another year goes by. Two. Five. Summer burns spring’s hair, sears its scalp, bloodies its bruising, blossoms a fresh, boiling despair within you. You squint your eyes at every female figure, your pulse lurches, heaving nervous questions at your skin: Is that her? Another year goes by. Two. Five. Summer cripples into the rippling qualms of fall. You begin to forget. All the dying leaves of your past plunge to earth like a star’s debris. There’s a cooling. A calming. Your mouth remembers to brush its teeth, not the murky memory of its battery. Pain grows distant but never separate. Another year goes by. Two. Five. Winter overthrows autumn and your body becomes an avalanche of damaged ice waiting for some crueler, crooked sun. Every clock’s a coffined tock you’ve grieved. Your time goes on but your hands cannot. If you’ve learned anything it’s that snow can’t be trusted. One day, your daughter’s angels. The next, a predator’s footprints. You splinter. Wonder if they’ll ever catch her. See a shadow moving in the river. Winter, Is that...