Clutching one another, two thieves consoling one another into accepting a world where what they did was natural, necessary even.
Her left leg wraps around his, scratching herself against the Brillo-pad graying hair spread across his calves the way cacti paint New Mexico’s horizon. The golden tanned calf muscle twitches as he stiffens his leg to stand, the blanket falling into the echo of his body.
Standing in front of the bay window framed by cedar, she looks at his ass, but he stares at the sun that’s baking them both with the cancer that will kill them in 40 years. They die on the same day, 4 hours apart, but he’s in Hong Kong, alone, while she’s surrounded by 9 grandchildren, the youngest of whom says before they walk out of the bleached hospital room, “At least now she’s with mom.”
