Cheryl Snell

Samsara

Homing Strategy

The man approaches the woman slowly as a cat stalking a mouse. Motion camouflage helps dragonflies catch prey, so why not? The man smiles and tongues his teeth to dislodge a bit of muffin, inching closer to the window that frames his target. The man wonders if the woman could pick him out of a lineup in his loud Hawaiian shirt. Moving objects with disruptive camouflage are harder to identify than plain ones. Leopards. Jumping spiders. Hey! she yelps when she feels his breath on her neck. Don’t sneak up on me like that! She slaps his arm with her black-and-white dish towel. He stares at the confusion of stripes in the air and says, Dazzling. She thinks he means her. In a sense, he does. He resumes his approach. He knows where home is.

Artificial Intelligence

The moon, lit with anxiety, is afraid of shifting; it never takes its own view for granted. Lint in the night sky is one thing; a parade of planets lolling as if on a piano lid is quite another. It complicates the blackness. But when the galaxy shakes itself like a wet dog, and clouds glower with thunder, she wonders what it will take─ considering she’s not a magician─ to promote the illusion that the moon is moving. Because isn’t that how it works these days? Appearances are deceiving; the way a thing looks is as real as the thing itself.

Vacation with Quid Pro Quo

He grabs her shoulder and points to the crocodile just now closing its mouth over the plover cleaning its teeth. It’s their pact, he says. This way they both get what they want. His hand, wrapped tight as a bandage around her arm, squeezes tighter. It feels like a threat.

Wings

Fluttering kites rained down on roof shingles. Windshields. Asphalt. They left to find his lost kite. Looked everywhere. Windows. Basements. Behind shelves in the public library. Found someone else’s kite instead. There would be no coming home without his personal kite. She needed air. Had to fly, no strings attached.

Buddy

Before he decides how to take the hint, before she reminds him not to lose the plot, before she teases him that he’s in the friend zone that has no benefits, before explaining, “When I love someone, I want to crawl right under his skin,” before he sees she isn’t joking, before she tells him that if she met Mick Jagger she’d make him do bloodwork, before she makes him jealous when she admits she still gets crushes on old rockers, before she reaches for his dangling hand, before she tells him how long it’s been since a man touched her.

Marco Polo

Then she wanted him back, but not like this─ locked between worlds─ so she canvassed the sky for the whereabouts of his broken promise; and while a twist of bats rose like smoke to spell a reply across the orange sky, their entangled bodies practiced the false starts and furious back-pedaling that had her chasing after them, her black silk robe flying, putting the man’s allegations of abandonment to rest─ although she would have rather have been the one to slice open the sky like a peach from a bowl, if only the bats had shown her how.


Cheryl Snell’s books include several poetry collections and novels. Her most recent writing has appeared in Eunoia Review, BULL, Ink Sweat &Tears, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Book of Matches, and other journals. She has work in several anthologies including Best of the Net and has been nominated ten times for Best Small Fictions, the Pushcart, and BOTN.

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