American Chordata: Magazine of New Writing Issue One, Spring 2015 | Page 23

He took my hand. “In Seattle, there’s no winter. And no cornfields, either. There are mountains and ocean and fields of raspberries. Come on. Take a bet on me.”
I looked up and saw that he was serious. We celebrated by
rolling across the sheepskin rug, until we almost knocked over an
antique standing birdcage. My aunt has no birds, only birdcages.
She is an example of someone who is possessed by her possessions.
She owns three sets of china, two leather couches, and six birdcages.
We have none of those things, but we have each other, and we
have our air plants.
Carson says that this is plenty.
“We don’t need to be loaded down with books,” Carson says.
“We can get library cards.”
It can also be said that I love Carson in spite of his bright side.
This would not be untrue either.
5 • FI CTION

Carson and I met at a benefit concert for children with cystic
fibrosis. One of the opening bands was called Fill Your Lungs, and
I was sleeping with their drummer. Carson was selling poems for
donation, seated at a long table with other poetry students and their
personal typewriters. He didn’t have a typewriter so he was painting his poems onto squares of stock paper with black india ink.
Mine had two words: beauty and fear.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“What every poem means,” he said.
“Your calligraphy’s nice.”
“Thanks. Remember to live without fear.”
At some point during the night I lost the poem on its square
paper. After the event we ended up beneath the same awning as
the rain tapped its rhythm above us. The drummer had left with a
girl he said was his sister. She didn’t touch him like a sister. Underneath the awning, Carson offered me gum and a shared cab ride,
but I said I was fine walking. He lent me his jacket instead. I returned it to him later that week at the place with the sweet potato
pancakes.