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be like to stay here all night. Wondered if she might meld the knobs of her spine so far into the tree that she became a part of the thing. Perhaps
she would cover herself in the richness of the dying bark. Perhaps grass would grow from the notches between her toes and squirrels would build homes in the nest of her hair.
She wondered if, when the men finally came to cut it down, she might feel the whir of machinery somewhere deep in her gut.
She imagined being in the middle of something ordinary.
The grocery store: White walls. White floors. The way people squeezed produce, their meaty fingers digging into soft flesh. The way they thumped melons. Smelled pineapples, searching for sweetness. The way they plucked bread from the shelves and laid it delicately in the front section of their shopping carts on top of the fragile shells of their eggs.
The way that they looked for the nourishment they needed and did not see each other.
Then, Lissa imagined her stomach split open—wood shavings emptying onto too white linoleum from a gaping hole in her belly. A man wearing a green smock and a name tag that said Bob, in the middle of answering her question—
“Where can I find the cream of chicken?”
“Canned goods are on isle 9.”
“But where is isle 9?”
A blink, a stare. The squeaky wheeled shopping cart letting go of a desolate cry.
“Right next to you ma—"
Lissa imagined Bob’s face as he realized that the whole grocery store isle has disappeared just because she is looking for it. Isle 9 has just packed up the shelves of canned goods and dried beans and wandered into the ether.