Redefining north.
by Rebecca Swanberg
Winner, Neutrino Short-Short Prize, selected by Krys Malcolm Belc
You built the bed. You built the bed, so you should keep it, reverse-screw the planks and twine-bind them. You built the bed on my red porch in the summertime. You bought the wood, you strapped it to your Volvo. In every sense, the bed is yours. You sanded the wood, you stained it, you piloted holes. You gave me the futon, so you should take it, you should take the futon, black-tufted, yarn-tied. You should roll it up and belt it. You grew up with that futon, you should grow old with that futon. Those lamps are your lamps, and I want you to take them, and plug them in, and be lit by them. Keep Moby Dick. Keep the letters. Keep the pool with the hibiscus, keep the walking path to the reservoir, the red barn. Keep the outdoor shower in Key Siesta, the Bud Light Lime at the Back Bar, keep your lap and the country music, the horse blanket in the horse pasture and the Perseids. Keep the Northern Lights through the tent vinyl, keep the instant mashed potatoes on the ferry boat, your hand as we looked down upon a mouthy crater, keep your mother’s Hungarian corn. Keep the sleeper car on the western coast, keep the high tide, the low tide, the phragmites in the Hudson Bay. The dark pit of your back, when you turn to the wall, and I turn to the window. Keep the fire, it was your firewood. Keep the bed.
Rebecca Swanberg holds an MFA from the University of Montana. Her writing has been published in Stone Canoe, PBS.org, WNYC.org, and other venues, and she is the winner of the 2020 Big Snowy Prize. She’s currently at work on her first novel and lives in Brooklyn, New York.