The Furrows

by Namwali Serpell

My toes were already wet by the time he realized I was gone. He leapt up and tossed the hat and gangled his way toward me. Yelling pellmell, splummeshing past me into the water.

His glasses were rainbow smudged.

accustomed to how he repressed his yawns, tensing and inflating his jowls, making a concertina of his neck.

So, in our family, there was a story, there was this lore, but it split in two where Wayne had left it. It split, then circled around the empty space where he should have been, and joined back together at the point when I walked into the house without him. The lore was a loop at the end of a rope, a lasso endlessly tossed, catching nothing.

Rain starts to fur the glow around the streetlights.

had a heart so broken it was always leaking love.