The Exquisite Remains

Relax as we pamper every inch of your disappearing body...
                                       —advertisement for a wedding spa
                                               treatment in a bridal magazine

The first inch to disappear is my big toe.
I didn’t expect this. More inches follow, slipping
past something like the surface of a hot bath.
Jazzercise is becoming difficult.

The instructor says not to grieve for my foot;
it’s in a better place. It wiggles, somewhere, in its bath.
Around it, a luxurious pinkness
bleeds a halo through the water. She says, “Essential oils!”
and I can almost smell it, my poor old foot
vinegary in that peppermint red—
and the outlines of trees, I can smell them too,
maybe pear blossoms, I want to say a froth
of pear blossoms—“Follow your bliss!”
says the instructor, but the trees are indistinct,
the trunks hardening and taking on edges
but then drowning again, swallowed up
by a slice of moon and “You can do it!”
she’s telling me, “your visualization exercises!”

A roar
and bristle. Neon. Wildfire. Body hair. I’m trying!

The catalogue: I thought it all was metaphor—
not Jazzercise, of course, not sweat or marriage—
but disappearing body, that struck me as a figure
of speech: an arm and a leg or one foot
in the grave, or work like a dog or wolf at the door—

It’s hard to focus—I keep thinking
What will fall off next? I’m hoping for a slice of hip
or ass, or maybe upper arm. But focus: wildfire,
the body, furred, uncovering. Follow your bliss
along his shirtfront’s ruffled pleats to the last
button before the light-blue wedding vest,
the cufflinks, hands. The emerging body;
but there won’t be much of mine, no thigh
to garter. The hand, at least, remains:
solid, white, and ready for the ring—

but no—the bare, blunt arm
hangs dumb as the hand unhooks itself,
swoops, pirouettes, its diamond sparkling
illegibly in the hot lights, fingers
fluttering to the music, flexing wide:
a star, palm fronds and open palm, a slap.
Gleaming, aerobic, it alights
wrist-downward on a pedestal; it snaps
to a rhythm I can’t catch. The music
coils and sizzles. Outside,
the rustling of invisible leaves, the click
of heels retreating. A rough snuffling. The drag
of a long wet branch, or a tail.

Good Things

When the toe came in the mail, we thought it was funny, because we were young and everything was something to make ours by laughing at. We’d already colonized the woman near us who watered her flowerbox in a poncho, and the seafood restaurant called “Fish O Fish” on our corner, and mostly we felt good all the time. We had a lot of parties that summer, with the toe on the windowsill as guest of honor. “To the toe!” we’d cry, and tap glasses till dawn. Then the toe’s nail would fill with pink light and for a minute glow like a candle.

It was on one of these mornings that we first became worried. We were still tipsy and drinking coffee in the kitchen. Marjorie said to Jason, “The toe looks like your toe.” I thought two things: First, she’s sleeping with him, and second, she’s right. Then another thing: Why hadn’t I noticed?

Jason looked at his toe. “You think?” he said.

“You’re not as tan,” someone else said, “but yeah.”

Jason propped his foot up on the windowsill. “That’s fucked up,” he said, looking at me and then at Marjorie. Someone went out to buy orange juice, and it became a funny thing, another one of our funny things.

After that morning in the kitchen, I watched Jason and Marjorie more closely. If they were standing with another person, for example, who did they look at? Did they look at that person as much as they looked at each other, or less? The answer was: less. They’d glance at each other, faces damp, and I hated them, but I knew they must feel good. Secrets work like brass polish; hidden things gleam.

I watched them so much I forgot about the toe. We all had. It stayed on the sill, but its time as the thing we talked about had passed. One night someone showed up with fireworks—little ones at first, sparklers and black snakes—and that became the thing. We’d stand on the roof and argue about how to light the fuse, and then in a flutter of silver it would be over.

Marjorie knew her way around a Catherine wheel, and those weren’t easy. But for Jason’s birthday, she tried something new, a Roman candle, and from across the roof, the wrapper seemed to be giving her trouble. He bent a little to help her and caught my eye as he did. I turned away. I heard them light the fuse and scurry off. In the windows of the building across the street, I watched the fountain of gold light rise and mist away. People cheered. At that moment, happiness seemed inexpressibly remote: like the Statue of Liberty, a thing way off in the distance. Afterward, Jason came over to me. “Hi,” he said, putting his hand on my hip.

“Hi,” I said, and I knew I was right.

The foot arrived the next day. It was sitting on the kitchen table, unwrapped, when I returned from the grocery store.

“It’s mine,” Jason said from over by the window. “And look.” He pointed to his left foot—the one still attached to him, or the one that would soon not be attached to him, or in any event simply not the foot on our table—and there was a clean scoop of space where his big toe should have been. I looked at him looking out the window. Outside, a large black dog rooted about in our garbage cans. The air smelled like tulips and wilted lilies from the deli downstairs. We stayed there together a long time.

For a while after that, things were good. I took care of him. We drank bourbon in bed. We didn’t have any more parties and we’d sit on the roof, watching the pigeons and gulls. Sometimes we played cards. Then his left foot disappeared, and it was hard for him to climb the ladder, so we stayed indoors. We kept getting packages, but we stopped opening them.

At night, I watch him sleep and I tell myself, better gone than gone away. As the traffic light changes, his skin glows green and red and green again. I hear the dog in the garbage, searching for something, sometimes barking, and let me tell you: it feels so good to get what you want.