Saba Keramati
Super Tuesday
On the first nice day in March, everything is still dead.
I open the window for the cats. Their eyes follow the robins.
The compost is still frozen, this unexpected
warmth in the midst of winter. The overgrowth
vines down the fence, ivy drinking in the melt.
We eat chocolate cake. We called in sick
to smoke and enjoy the sunshine. I keep lighting
up to less and less effect. We go for a walk
through the neighborhood and pass a house
with three small identical dogs barking at us.
We ooh and ahh at a neighbor’s porcelain goose
dressed up in pink for Easter. You show me
an adorable house on Zillow. It’s on Military Street.
When the sun fades behind a cloud I remember
in six months I will turn thirty. There will be more bad
news. The forecast shows another cold front moving in.
I say, This is a good life, all things considered.
This is a good place to be. And we believe it
on this nice day. The gleam
so bright we cannot see beyond it.
Memory
The summer before I turned 30, the city
decided to update its sewer system. There was a presidential
election approaching. Gaza and the West Bank being razed
to the ground by US-supplied bombs. The construction
let loose hundreds of rats. Some made a nest
in our garden, raided every last tomato. The landlords and city clerks
told us to eradicate them ourselves. You, correctly believing
me too soft for this task, laid traps. Assured me their deaths
would be quick, relatively painless. The first night,
four dead rats. You dug a hole behind the garage,
buried them, then reset the springs. When you came inside,
your breath shook like a flame in the wind.
The next night, two snaps within minutes. One of the rats
remained undead, struggling under the weight of the metal.
The shovel now caked with blood. You dug open again
the freshly-turned dirt. The yard seemed to fog over, a gray July.
Rats continued walking into the traps. Once, only a leg
was left for you to find. With each burial, a growing tension.
I feel bad for them, I told you, meaning the leg—either snapped
or chewed off—or the rats who may have suffered
overnight. But we did not stop. It’s eerie,
what we can make sense of when we need to.
Thirteen were caught. We knew it was over
when the smaller, more acceptable critters returned to the yard.
Days later: I smell death. I was unfamiliar
with the scent, noting it only as foul. Under the firewood,
we found it. What I thought were shallow inhales of dying
were maggots, burrowed inside the rat, having entered
through its eyes. Their crawling undulated
its body. Patches of fur had fallen out, revealing
skin bruised blue. One more to add to the grave.
I knew these were not the first animals you’d killed
but I’d never considered the smell of what you had hunted.
I asked you to describe it to me. Like rot, you said.
But thicker. Inescapable. That night, you slept without
a blanket, too warm, you said, like something was sticking
to you. I touched your arm, and I could feel the heat
of your red blood rise.