My Digits

The night before I fly back home, I prick my mother’s finger. She has lancets, alcohol wipes, gauze. Her last specimen collection, which she did herself, didn’t produce enough blood for the test. It’s an over-the-counter thing I hadn’t heard of. It’ll measure food sensitivities; and I think it’s great that my mom’s concerned about this now. In a few days, she’ll be seventy-eight. I milk her finger. I used to work in a lab. I’m used to pricking babies’ heels. Having grown up on a farm, I know how to milk a cow: warm her nipples, apply my digits to her teats.

When I was a child, my mom always said she was fat, a reason no one ever liked her. We lived on a farm and didn’t go places much, save family occasions, where most of her siblings and cousins looked a lot like her. So when we went to “town” or to the “city,” seeing skinny people in bell-bottoms, wearing earrings and having long hair made me wonder of their bank accounts, if somehow their souls were made of fairies, if they spoke in psalms. Then, at home again, I’d have to wake from the dream, put groceries away, feed calves, hear my dad scream and yell about this and this or that thing.

One night, I found an instrument in the attic. A theremin. I played around with it. Used during the war. Turns out, it belonged to my pedophilic grandpa.

Break the Glass

The creature is back. Gigi’s bark alerts me. It’s five a.m.; and I’m usually good about ignoring her when I’m trying to sleep, but she’s about to break the glass and jump through the window.

After making my way to the sunroom, seeing out the windows, I see the creature with its tail. Gigi’s barking doesn’t stop. “Oh!” I say. I go back to the other room for my phone. And when I return, I can’t see the animal.

I suppose I would never make a good spy. Half asleep, sans lights and my glasses, I can’t see much. I’d prefer to go back to sleep, but Gigi’s still in bark mode.

Then I see the movement of a creature far in my neighbor’s backyard, lingering with its big tail. “Hey there, Clydesdale!” I say. I do my best to take a picture, but it’s dark out, and the creature is in motion. I think maybe I’m still dreaming, and I don’t have my glasses.

It jumps over yet another fence, sprints off.

I do my best to try to fall back asleep again. I dream of boxing matches, losing my dogs at the airport, meeting a man drunk on cognac.

I haven’t been with a man in years. I think of boxing matches, squalls of them, like storms, me playing dead for a while.

After I wake to more of Gigi’s barking, everything is light. I see the creature again, maybe a coyote, lingering across the street. I try to take a picture, but my phone is playing dead for a while.

Things That Roar

Moving my legs on my bike trainer, seeing the app on my synced tablet, I see my avatar move her legs, rounding corners. That version of me never sweats, never has emotions. There are big pyramids, fake crocuses, things that roar. Other avatars belonging to other cyclists lag behind. Some pass. Some ride along, in sync.

My trainer has a sensor that detects my speed, my power, my resistance. I can adjust the angle—when my butt’s sore, I might want to move the bars up. I can stand. This mimics my race bike.

I’ll have to get out on the road soon, once the weather clears. I’ll have to ride my bike on race day. Seven weeks away. I’ll be heading to France, to race in the Loire Valley.

It’s safe here, on the trainer. No crashes, no cars or pedestrians to navigate around. And it keeps me honest. Knowing my watts, repetitions, power. Every second of my heart rate. I feel the strength of my muscles, my pores pouring sweat. On a table next to my tablet, I have bottles of water and sports drink. Figs, dates, bananas. From my bone-conduction earbuds, I hear the same playlist: Metallica, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, AC/DC, Nirvana. And when I hear these tunes when not on the trainer?

Oh, to be so alive.

My workouts are a pyramid into my soul, my physical self, my psyche. It’s just one room in what I call my “pain cave.” With a TV I rarely turn on, with my inspirational posters: one signed by Bill Rodgers in Boston two days before the bombings. One by Meb, telling me I can win. The room is on the second floor of my home. I originally made it into a guest room, though that was right after covid, and no one was visiting.

Sometimes, my dogs enter, sighing. They lounge and wait for me in the hallway.

Sometimes, I can hear them barking.

Sometimes, it’s a challenge. Sitting on my butt that long. Sometimes, one hour; sometimes, two; sometimes, even three.

After this, I’ll scoot right over to my treadmill. I have the same app there that’ll record my heart rate, pace, my cadence. The same avatar of me runs without pause. I’ll run for as long as I’m supposed to.

I work with a coach. I trust her instructions.

It isn’t always fun. Another hour, two. It’s called a “brick,” in triathlon terms. Sometimes I ask myself: what else?

Isn’t this great for my health? For my heart? For my kidneys? For my cells?

Oh, to breathe.

I repeat my homilies: what else makes me?

High-End

My ex’s sister texts to wish me a happy birthday. She’s never done that before. She asks how I’m doing, which I find odd, because I should be asking how she is, which I’ve done, but I don’t want to overwhelm her.

It’s just an okay birthday, and sometimes I just want the whole day to be over. I remember one birthday, driving from New York to Wisconsin to see that ex, sick with the flu. It was a plaza of emotions, and the ex was no help at all. He bought me a high-end handbag, and I thanked him. I didn’t need a designer handbag. I needed his devotion.

It was the stem of a lot of our missteps. We had met in high school. We married other people. Then divorced. Then we reunited. He said he’d move for me; and I should have never allowed his false serenades, him in slushy mode. His drink. The thing that ultimately killed him.

(Image: Uta Barth’s Untitled (from Nowhere Near) (1999))