1. Obituaries
By Christine Lavosky
FIREWORKS we set off in our Air Bnb’s parking lot in Maine. Vermillion orange
fountains shooting showers over the concrete. More dangerous than the pop-pops
you gave me to throw on the ground and watch ignite on impact. Darkness and an
imagined rustling in the bushes. Late. You squeezed my shoulder as we watched
their light. Listened to their ruptured pops. I felt close to you, but then a sharp pain,
like the bones in my shoulder were scraping against each other.
A MUG CAKE in your mom’s handmade pottery. Grey with orange-brown flecks. The
one you hated for some reason. Watching it rise in the microwave. You insisted that
it only had to be cooked for three minutes and forty-five seconds even though I
argued that it needed longer. You were right, as always. Your culinary specificity
applied to even this laziest version of cake imaginable. I could swear you used a
temperature probe for toast when no one was looking. A lava center rose from its
depths. I wanted to put sprinkles, but you said no.
THE LAUGHS of fishermen sitting on the dock (toes poking through unwashed
woolen socks, the smell of stale coffee wafting from a colossal, green thermos) as we
waded fully-clothed through the pond. You had raced ahead of me on our hiking trail
and yelled back at me that I was weak. You said the words while laughing, but I still
couldn’t help but wonder if you really meant it. Of course, it was you that found our
next adventure. I had to admit, during all our years coming to Cape Cod we’d never
found this place before. We waded a long time before we finally got to that tiny
island. When we got there it was empty. Silent. So we undressed, laid our clothes out
to dry. We floated on our backs, you a little worried about people seeing us. You
were always worrying about something. I didn’t remind you of the chance of
thunderstorms that night. Relished in the carefreeness. My control over the
situation. Cargo shorts and T-shirts tucked into a pile of dry leaves. You set up the
camping hammock and we both got in.
A RAINY WALK on the beach. Another day on the Cape. We were pretending it was
Scotland. The off-season. You stopped short, turned to face me, ran the tips of your
fingers over the back of my neck. Fine blond hairs rising. You and the cold wind. You
stopped short and just looked at me, like you were going to say something. But then
you just walked away, towards the water and mumbled to yourself about the tides
or fishing. I whispered, “I love you,” to the back of your head. You were already
peering over the edge of the dock, looking for striped bass.
AN INKY PEN you once gave me as a gift. It was lovely–silver. Came in a velvet-lined
box. I liked the weight of it in my hand, heavier than my cheap ballpoints, like it
contained just the right words and phrases within its metallic casing. But I was
clumsy. I smudged them. Images and thoughts I’d agonized over became unreadable.
Just the way you would have understood them anyway. Big blue stains all over my

2. little hands. I always used it around you though. Tried to keep my words from
stumbling into each other. Implored them to be graceful, to look out for cracks in
the sidewalk and unmarked ditches. Tried compulsively to be neat. Didn’t want you
to be mad.
A POCKETKNIFE used to cut oranges for whiskey sours. Sitting on a small island of
sand. You were in the water, catching crabs with your net. Every time I looked up
you had another one. The knife had a circular metallic ring over the wooden handle.
I folded in the blade, I suppose too forcefully, and the ring twisted out of place. Had I
broken it? I kept glancing up at you to make sure you hadn’t seen me. Twisted,
twisted. I thought I could fix it. I rubbed the blade over and over on my purple
bathing suit bottom, as least making sure all the bulbous orange shreds were off.
SQUASHES squeezed through tiny holes. Dinner. A haphazard pile of pasta
pieces. Light orange and limp. A winding crank. Spirilizing. Breaking.
EDITS
-Add a stanza between AN INKY PEN and SQUASHES to better deserve last stanza.
More of a progression from happy-ish in relationship and putting up with
boyfriend’s controlling, domineering nature to being completely unhappy and stifled
by him. Connect to the fact that (though unmentioned in the poem itself) the two
characters broke up––connects to title “Obituaries”–– narrator is writing the
obituaries after the relationship has been dissolved not during it. The moments are
not occurring in the present but being remembered and cataloged.
-Make short sentences in INKY PEN section longer? Language is too different from
the rest––make consistent with other stanzas
Read: Small Deaths by Lynne Ramsey