Sunbather by Nicholas Cook
The sky is squeegeed cloudless. He’s seeing a sunbather on the side. I picture her breasts, skin burnt by tar paper on the roof. She has a heart condition, he says.
I chart the trajectory of satellites overhead, point to a blank spot in the sky. Russian, I say, maybe Chinese. I imagine what it’s like circling the Earth that way, seeing everything there is to see over and over. Does it make a swooshing sound when you fly past other objects bathed in the sun?
Down here, he’s accepted the chewy nature of my mind. I accept that he’ll never be happy with me alone. He talks of the sun woman, her tan skin, heart supported by ticking metal machines.
Nicholas Cook has work published or forthcoming in Camroc Review Press and New World Writing. He lives in New York.