Polarized

BELLE PARK

Mid-March and the ice dam gave out during the night — we’d been expecting as much for days. The field between us and the river flooded, a weirdly smooth invasion of water; the meadow grass became like last year’s abandoned rice. Half of the coal-black lane was gone too. An old osprey nest high above us was near-flat on its tempered stand, just a platter now of wound poplar.

I let Viv sleep until sleep wore itself out, until she blinked into mid-morning. She wasn’t able to reconcile what she saw with what she’d left yesterday. The way it meant we would have to pack up and move again. The ache forever in our backs. She sucked at a thumb-splinter that had come off the plywood door I’d hammered to the tent’s face. 

When she settled into the way things were, I told her (and didn’t know why) that I’d found a polarized lens in the snow. Down that way, I said, gesturing east. Someone busted their glasses, I guess. I pressed the glass shape into her hand like a shallow dish of gasoline. 

She turned far enough that the sun filled her hair. The new lake framing her face. It’s like a petal, Jon. 

I suppose it is, Viv, yeah.

 But then you’re always bringing me flowers, aren’t you, love? she said, but then she sighed and damned if I know why.