Your Likert-type scale with its even number of anchors renders fence-sitting impossible . . . Not that anyone cares . . . Auditions for Player-of-the-Month continue . . . The constant gardener . . . The reassignment of persons places things . . . You are reassigned . . . elsewhere . . . You apply for a sabbatical . . . to study ins-and-outs . . . redactions . . . Expungements like a good neighbor . . . The bus stations of your odyssey morph into empty rooms . . . Mannequins appear . . . and color-code themselves . . . to fit in . . . Implied otherness . . . is not an oft-used phrase . . . Quickly, the storm of texts arrives . . . uninvited . . . Reading the odd numbered chapters . . . evenly spaced . . . is one way to go . . . Questions from past players . . . hoping to score . . . choke your answering machine . . . Your mother appears and orders a chunk of suet for gołąbki . . . Porcelain-skinned Angela, the store owner's wife, reaches across the counter . . . with a piece of fruit . . . The window showcases bound, hanging cheeses . . . their sharpness . . . the entrapment of memory . . . squeezing through the fence . . . dealing . . . or not . . . A Proustian moment as joie de vivre . . .
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| Diandra Forrest |