1.
When M＿＿ shuffles into the madhouse lobby—no earrings, no laces in her shoes—it seems inopportune to mention the pan of water and liquid Dawn that I rigged up on our bedroom floor, how the lamp shines above it like a lover’s moon over Pascagoula, but when fleas leap for the heat of the bulb, the great arc of their adventure lands them in the pan where they bog down in the slimy pull of soap.
2.
Since the voices told M＿＿to check herself in, neither of us knows if or when we’ll stroll down our busted sidewalk between the blighted dogwoods, just me and M＿＿ and M＿＿’s favorite flea, the flea who loved her when she flushed her meds, flea whom she walked around our neighborhood on a leash of thread, cussing out old ladies if they stepped too close, and M＿＿’s flea cussing too, though only she and dolphins could hear his high-pitched cry, his tiny complaint.
3.
I don’t tell M＿＿ that Mr. Mattuse will not replace the AC that fell out of the window when the window fell out, just as he refuses to bomb beneath the house where the infestation began in a dank oasis of sandy soil and leaky pipes. M＿＿reports a surprisingly tasty tapioca. Says the orderlies unraveled her French braids to prevent self-harm, which seems odd given that she spent half a day weaving a hanging basket in occupational therapy. Fleas and love, love and fleas. There are two things driving me crazy, and only one of them is crazy.
4.
In lieu of M＿＿, I sing to the fleas. I whistle as they spin in their soapy orbits I hum a lullaby to the fleas decked out in their watery death boats about which I am starting to feel a creeping guilt. Soon, I’ll get lonely and have to perform CPR on a flea I nearly watch drown before I come to my senses and fish him out, and his brothers and sisters, his aunts and cousins, and his pets, and his pets’ fleas. I shall lie on the floor naked and let them feast on my elbows and knuckles until they are the size of average humans.
5.
Bottoms up, I say to M＿＿when the nurse rounds the corner with her clipboard and dose. To good hygiene, M＿＿says, then burps, which magnetizes me, makes me long for a month of kisses. But there are rules. Rules in lieu of sanity. Traps for fleas, rules for kisses. For instance, I don’t ask M＿＿, why did you abandon me? Was I the heat, or the hound beneath the flea-bait porch?
6.
Nor do I offer the letter that began, Dear M＿＿, I moved to Virginia. Nor the one that started, Dear M＿＿, I paid the rent. Dear M＿＿, the stuck fleas kick in tight, gluey circles before settling into their new look: flecks of pepper in the dishwater of circumstance. Still, when the nurse takes her smoke break, we slip like newlyweds down the long hall toward the barred window, the linoleum squeaky, buffed to an anti-sceptic mirror-like glow. Excluding the taste of each other’s lips, neither of us knows what to expect.
7.
What I tell M＿＿: I wrote a poem about a squirrel and a pillow case, walked to Delchamps for free coffee, Hardin’s for day-old doughnuts.
