Helpmeet

by Naben Ruthnum

His fingers, the long fingers of the surgeon he was or the musician he sometimes pretended to be in bars and brothels and around card tables, seemed to have grown as Edward shrunk, lengthening by a phantom joint as his palms lost their muscle.

It’s sipping at my eyes now, Edward had said in October, less than a month after he trimmed the last of his nose away. He used to speak this way to patients, giving their ills verbs, explaining diseases as intrusive creatures that could be bargained with.

He loved me. Loves me.”

I had him, Bill. I have him,

But soon they were too entwined to discern one’s thought or word from the other’s, to know who was moving the tongue, who was having the thought.