TORTOISESHELL
Here's my neighbor, moving slowly through November, circling into my yard, stooping to examine mushrooms and the skeletons of leaves. Wherever she goes, she carries her tortoiseshell woe on her back, a dome of dappled shadows. This is the sadness she prizes. It has almost ceased to be a burden. It has become the darkened house she dwells inside, shades drawn against the prying fingers of the sun, door shut to the curious. Its familiar brown shingles armor her frail body.
She dreams that one day she'll leave her shell behind. She'll carve it down to a comb, swirled with sepia and gold. She'll hold it to the window just to watch the sun sparkle through, making patterns on her skin. Someday she'll run its harmless teeth over her scalp and watch it glide through her silver hair, weightless as a whisper.
BRIDE NUMBER TWO
He carried his guilt over the threshold like a second bride, a crow wearing a black diaphanous veil. The veil was such a long, unwieldy shadow, that as he stepped over the doorsill, it tangled on his spurs, hobbling him. Shifting foot to foot like a metronome, he dropped giggling Bride Number One on her backside, tripped over her gown, and caught his nose on the granite countertop. Blood spattered the taffeta with confetti. Bride Number One howled like a stuck siren, wavering between laughter and weeping. Tearing loose, Bride Number Two furiously flapped to the curtain rod, veil creepily draped over her head, beak poking out of the folds like a tarnished dagger. Like the infamous raven, she knew only one word, but she knew exactly when to use it.