Trimming


After I set up the tree I have to retrain the dog. It makes him think he’s outside. And then I decorate with costume jewelry and lace cut away from underwear, stockings. Sara calls from the Sonoran desert. “Problem,” she says. “I know,” I say. “I got the ornaments,” she says.

I’m cutting angel shapes out of her nightgown as we talk. Her voice is odd, steadier. Chewing espresso beans has softened her tongue. Her new neighbor is a weaver. He brought her a blanket last week with geometric patterns. Sharp red angles. Black circles. They watched the sun drop and ate pineapples.


I don’t tell her my neighbor is a quality wood distributor. That he gave me some plywood.


“It smells like cardamom,” she says. “The desert. In the morning.”

That night I move the bed nearer to the hearth. The tree is whirling with secrets, symbols of infinity. The oil furnace in the cellar shrugs and seems to burst, ticking pipes as the metal expands. It is so quiet we can hear a family caroling across the snowy street, singing about the holy baby. If Jesus were born tomorrow it would make him a Capricorn.


The dog sleeping at my ankle stirs and puts his favorite bone under my chin. He wants to play our timeless game of hide and take-away and give-back.


I don’t give it back.

Barrett Warner is the author of Why Is It So Hard to Kill You? (Somondoco) and My Friend Ken Harvey (Publishing Genius). His stories have appeared in Quarter after Eight, Berkeley Fiction Review, Phoebe, Cutleaf, and other places. His website is https://barrettwarner.com/

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