songs_for_late_summer tender_square the park was empty, and i trudged through the forest wiping sleep and cobwebs from my eyes. sunlight stretched tentative through the lithe silver maples and i held my shoulders back though my muscles groaned in protest. my ankle nearly twisting on a beige rock i stepped to avoid and yet managed to make contact with, a sudden slipping. i was lonely on the mulched and powdered trails. at the ridge over the open field where big yellow machines build a mountain of dirt and lots for the living, i saw charles who joked that i was overdressed in leggings and a hoodie. it was 59 degrees when i set out, my ears ringing with chill an hour after. bill and his new yellow lab, millie, appeared on the grassy edge, stepping into my peripheral as i prepared to cross platt. she was a stray found in a rich neighbourhood, and had given birth to a litter at seven. her blackened, stretched belly swung with her stride. and though i know it’s routine for dogs to be separated from their pups, she was abandoned at her most vulnerable and i wonder how much longer i can hold on. on the drive to work, my husband asks if i’m okay; i am tired of him chauffeuring me to a job in a city that i don’t want to live in anymore. i twist the radio dial and raise my voice with a chorus i inadvertently change the words to: “so give me something to believe, ’cause i am living just to breathe, and i need so much more than what i’m breathing for, so give me something to believe.” 220726 ... tender_square lately, i’ve been doing sweet fuck all at work, miming busyness in my cubicle, fingers fluttering keyboard keys as i pass messages of love in place of answering emails. laura and i leave for a shared lunch on the steps of east hall, and the sun emerges for good while she tears at peanut butter and jelly and i chew forkfuls of salad. she asks after my birthday weekend and i can’t help but gripe about a friend i don’t know how to be there for, and the ways i am bothered at being annoyed, and the ways i am troubled by my desire to withdraw. she listens intently, offers understanding, shares that her father is more irritable as of late; he has stopped taking his antidepressants without any prior discussion with his doctor, just a self-directed weening. he no longer attends therapy. this is how the mind messes with our sense of stability: i am better now. the darkness was temporary. 220726 ... tender_square “who gave you authorization to do that?” my boss jokes, but i sense an edge to her statement, a pass at passive-aggressiveness i don’t understand. she says she’ll be in the office tomorrow morning, phrases it as being a surprise just for me, and i’m suddenly self-conscious about my work ethic though she often makes a big show of valuing me as a temp. at home, my husband recoils when a surface burns his hand. “careful!” i call out of concern, but he takes it as criticism, believing i think him an idiot. i trim his beard with electric clippers following a sweaty post-dinner walk, an act formed from love years prior that has since turned chore. his skin is clammy and i’m ashamed that touching him is the furthest from my wants, and whether this is my body’s way of preparing me for the future, for separation. 220726 ... tender_square in my ears, he sings, “it’s a beautiful morning for a funeral song.” i awake in darkness and stretch in silence, muscles tense and tender. the toilet pants persistently, despite my handle jiggling, and i leave it to leak. a white-haired woman calls out “behind you” as she jogs by on the forest trail, refuting my solitary stroll. a fire hydrant gushes a geyser on the sidewalk. i meditate and try to visualize the future, the only way i can build a bridge to him. as hours recede, i long for daybreak, for being alone before the onslaught of situations i can’t control and can only react to. 220727 ... tender_square sundays carry a silence unknown to the other days of the week. i watch the beginnings of light stretch above the rooftops in bands of pink; the days are shortening. at the intersection of edgewood and elmwood, six crows coast into the waiting arms of an elder oak and caw. the creek is shallow, barely gurgling. front loaders, flat beds, and excavators sleepy line a muddy field, shadowed by man-made mountains of dirt. a repurposed can of beans is a path-side vase for dinnerplate dahlias, their faces licks of flame i wish to press between wax sheets and the weight of encyclopedic books. when i make it to the other side of the muddy field an hour later, the decapitated crowns of three grand trees are wrapped in tourniquets of orange. i mourn for them. the closer my steps deliver me back to the place i live, the greater the clarity of fantasy blooms: i could leave right now. i could drive into the daylight and cross the border before he even wakes. i don’t need much; i could leave most of it behind and begin again. 220731 ... tender_square i turn up the volume to hear his hushed words sung, recorded in the embrace of night’s arms, the hiss of stars on lossless format. a gardener bends in overgrowth, a runner smiles mid-sprint. a beer truck rattles cargo across six lanes sending shudders into scrubland. when i climb the crest of the forest trail and turn east, the sun slinks through gaps and onto my face. i close my eyes; a morning’s blessing. an assurance of good things in the hours ahead. i don’t want the planetary shift that will take this alignment away, the outpouring glow of her touch. bill’s ankle has worsened, he’s wrapped it in a tensor bandage, tells me he’ll probably need to lay off for a few days. “don’t wait up,” he calls. i kick dirt off the driveway and unfurl a spongy tongue of blue. a light aircraft putters between my hands in virabhadrasana i. a hummingbird levitates in the open lips of a purple hibiscus. george descends from the arbor vitae and i pass her a walnut, tossing peanuts at circling squirrels who’ve stripped shells, eager to give chase. on the drive to work, i gaze out the window memorizing scenes of summer i’ll leave behind. 220802 ... tender_square i’m complaining as soon as i’m seated in the passenger side: “your car is too low,” and “it’s so cold in here.” he’s sour because politics have entered the writing classroom; someone is already offended by a satirical idea from another student, though the instructor is handling it tactfully. as i wait for corn cobs to soften in a bath of boiling water, he paces the kitchen and tries to engage me in an intellectual discussion about creativity and truth. my mind is elsewhere. “you’re so quiet,” he remarks. i apologize for agreeing, for not being capable of more. “you used to,” he says. i think about an essay i tried reading over lunch where the author argued that the true meaning of marriage is suffering alongside one another. my negative self-chatter spiral begins: i don’t know how to commit. i’m selfish. i cut and run when things get difficult. i live in a fantasy world. i want a love that doesn’t exist or isn’t sustainable. we do our neighbourhood circuit and the heat is omnipresent, claustrophobia inducing. “this walk sucks,” i groan. i’m miserable and melting and tomorrow will be worse. 220802 ... tender_square “i’m not bombarding you with my stuff today, am i?” he asked me. “can i speak honestly?” he nodded. “it’s no different than any other time,” i said. silence enveloped the car as it idled at a red. i stared as a woman in a pink paisley summer dress sauntered the crosswalk. “nothing interesting ever happens at work,” i said. “i’m sorry i have nothing to offer.” 220803 ... tender_square yesterday’s primary did not produce the results hoped for. the incumbent mayor beat the democratic challenger. he’s the reason why the lot next to the park is being bulldozed for townhomes. this morning, by the decapitated trees the developer killed, i saw two large metal leaves, lawn ornaments, staked into the cliff with wooden qr codes for “veridian,” the incoming housing development. a fucking joke. already my husband laments the state of the city, talks about moving, this time to birmingham or royal oak, so that i can be closer to my family. “if there’s anywhere we’d be moving,” i said, “i think it would be home.” 220803 ... tender_square “you’ve left it all on me,” he said. “we bought this house when you said you’d freelance, that way we could be there whenever we wanted. now you work in an office—and i get why you had to do that with, you know, covid—but not you’re homesick and now you’re asking to go there more frequently and it isn’t improving. i can tell that 90% of you is somewhere else. and i’m not saying that can’t eventually happen, putting in the paperwork to go there, but i can’t do that and not keep residing in the states.” 220803 ... tender_square on the way to pick up groceries he surprises me by asking what projects need attention at the windsor house. i rattle off a list and ask why. “just trying to get a sense of what it would take to get that place into shape. i’m giving more thought to the pr paperwork; i’m thinking maybe we could rent our house here.” we’re at a red light and he’s in the driver’s seat. the signal changes and he shifts the car into gear, veering us around a corner at a reasonable speed, but i have whiplash. this reconsideration isn’t because he sees how much my family means to me; he’s wanting to hit the eject button again so he can start over, never establishing himself anywhere. 220808 ... tender_square i run the straight iron through my hair, kinking strands to wave. looking into the mirror i don’t see myself, i see past my face; i’m staring into vacancy. “what’s wrong?” he asks. he’s always asking. i give a weak smile though the mirror, my back to him. he watches when my guard is down. the answer is not something i can say, though it must leak out of these lines i smear with concealer. “it’s the weather,” i remark. “it’s so grey out there.” he’s studies me by the front door when it’s time to leave. “did i do something?” “no. what would make you think that?” “i’m just making sure.” in the car, the radio flashes “hard to handle” though the volume is nearly muted. i want to turn it up to slice the silence but i know he hates the black crowes. he accelerates into third and i stare ahead, blinking back tears. “please don’t force my hand,” i pray to any deity that can help. 220808 what's it to you? who go blather from