Dear Wigleaf, My next-door neighbor moved into a house at the bottom of the lake. It's modest, she tells me, two bedrooms, large windows, a garden for squash and chard. She doesn't mind the fish breathing at her windows, never blinking. Or the occasional minnow that slips in when she opens the door. It sounds all backwards, I say. She says the clouds are still soft in the sky, the sun still blinds. The speedboats leave their thick, wet contrails. She says it's not so different. I'd offered to help her move, but she said no need. The move would be just like giving in. She positioned a boat above the front yard and nudged everything she owned overboard. Plunk, plunk, plunk. It all floated down and nothing broke. At the apartment next door, everything she pushed off the third story balcony broke. Her television, her ex-boyfriend's Fiestaware, a pint of Bloody Mary—that left an ugly stain on the cement. When we walked by it a few weeks ago, she said, Ha Ha. She said, Look, and then she lay down where the glass had landed, showed me how it could have been her head. So you like your new place? I ask. She says she likes the gravity; it's not so heavy-handed. And the ground, the way it pads. All my love, Kara - - -
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