The Edge of Sleep: What Still Counted After - by Diana Piner

Lena tells the dark it happened at the edge of sleep, and that it did not count because she never asked. The lie is already too small for the cushion under her, for the sweater that will not go into the wash, for the lock she turned as if a latch could keep a house from knowing what she had become inside it. Before that, there is only the chart on the rail. June’s lake place, June’s dog, June’s six months in Denver offered as a roof to a woman whose Portland sublet has ended and whose last close warmth was a funeral. Moose is nine, heavy, not a kennel dog. Care is the price of the keys. Feed him. Walk the fence loop. Do not let the place go feral. The couch is forbidden in an underline Lena can still obey, until the afternoon his weight settles along her thigh and her hand stays on his chest longer than checking requires. Two nights can still be denied. A nose under cotton. A door shut. A morning that rinses clear.