Mamma, Jack's Voice Is Edged With a Sigh of Relief

Elizabeth values her privacy when she is bathing or shitting. She only varied her routine when a red semicircle of skin started to peel away. Now she slips into a tub that shocks the breath out of her, and modeles her fingers purple. It shrinks her skin around her, nobbles it. Elizabeth imagines the freezing bottom of the ocean, too deep for sunlight to touch. Her hair billows like anemome around her face. The heat overstayed. But the long summer daylight has gone even now,. barely scraping four o'clock, the sky is darkening. A pale, craterous moon hangs over the dusky sea. Jack's warbling voice