Love & Death
by Alexandra Isacson

1. Fertility Rites

 

She rode the subway to the antique district in Manhattan. She sifted through curiosities and clothes in an underground parking lot and street shops. In the sunshine, she talked to a Jamaican man about a fertility gourd, painted and carved voluptuous with swollen belly and breasts. He wanted her to make an offer.

 

2. Williamsburg, Brooklyn

 

They slipped away from the soiree to the roof, her gown aflutter in the evening breeze. Beneath the stars, they sipped blush champagne and ate crab puffs. In the shiver of a butterfly wing, she winked at him.

 

3. The Baby

 

She ballooned her cheeks and made drama faces for the baby, snapping photographs. A mother burst into their studio, flashing a glittery wand, and threw her two-year-old daughter’s pink tutu on the floor. The baby bubbled and laughed.

 

4. Moulin Rouge Dancers

 

In her garden, she clipped roses to scatter petals in her bath and boudoir. She loved the spent flowers that fell in the flowerbeds, crumpled silk dress messes much like the costumes of dancers.

 

5. The Cool Veil

 

She dressed in black velvet and wore a vintage pillbox hat. Beneath the cool veil of a moonlit night, she took the old man’s hearse for a drive. She swung past the cemetery into town and through the neighborhoods. At home, the phone rang. She wrapped herself in the cord of the woman’s whisper, “Who died?”

 

ALEXANDRA ISACSON is currently captivated by the tropical butterflies at the Tucson Botanical Gardens. She loves art and gardening. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Emprise Review, Medulla Review, Metazen, PANK, and elsewhere. Visit her at alexandraisacson.com.

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