--- R O C H E L L E   R A T N E R

1.

He stares at the picture. Two peaks, evenly spaced
(assuming a woman's lying at an angle). Hard to tell how far
apart they are, except there's one small green tree or bush
growing mid-center in front of them. Each is a perfect cone-
shape, with a stiff, protruding nipple at the top. He wants his
wife to see this.


2.

The mayor of a Kentucky town has given away his mower
and let the grass around his house grow wild. There are
more important things in life than tall grass a sign in front of
his house says, though it's difficult to read now that weeds
surround it. His wife died last winter of breast cancer, and
now he doesn’t mow his lawn, but he's the same person he
always was. It's just that he's stopped fighting Mother N.
Flowers he never saw before popped up as soon as the
grass grew. Birds and squirrels are a delight to watch.


3.

He wants his wife to see this. Not the picture, but the
mountains. They're in a remote Chinese province where
tourists seldom visit. As a little boy vacationing at the beach,
he and his sister used to dig toward China. Shovels in hand,
first filling buckets, then just pushing sand aside, then using
their hands to scoop out the cool, hidden dirt. He thinks of
the surgeon scooping out portions of his wife's breasts, first
one, then three years later the other. He wants to cut a sprig
from the bush and place it in the softly graying locks that
frame her smile. He wants to give thanks.