ISSUE NO. 2: COWBOYS

The evening sweeps across the bare plane of earth, the last of the day glinting at the corner of his eye. In the distance, clouds pool at the edge of the sky, where tomorrow’s crystal-blue daybreak will shatter into a storm. Pale waves of moon ripple through the dark grass, its sheen hissing along with the rumbling night sky. Lightning sets the expanse in a flash of purple-white haze, and all is black again. Then she is with him in the shrouded spot with tiled walls where the faucet runs ragged down her skin, and her brown hair runs deep spider-veins around her neck, her cheeks. As her jaw falls open, her dull brown-black eyes blink up at him. Afterward, he would watch her squint underneath a white towel and hear her muffled laugh. For a long time, he had nightmares of desert storms, of waking up in an unfamiliar sandscape with nothing to guide him, not even the moon. He sat at the edge of the bed, night after night, and shook his head until the floor stopped sinking beneath his toes, and he traced empty circles on her stomach from behind until he fell asleep again. She hadn’t understood it at all, which made it easier for him to step out one night and not think of coming back to their apartment again. Tonight, his fingers sift through the grass as he walks. The air is cool with the breath of summer’s cousin, and as the last of the stars peek out over the trees, their leaves bottom-up, the storm winds reverberate through the forest, swirling before wrapping around the trunks. He shuts his eyes. He is home. 

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Ellie Musgrave