I gained a reputation for writing obituaries, scraping a life from promotions and hobbies and lists of survivors. I would have preferred to bake a cake, something dense, soft inside. Or clean the bathroom, scrub the blood and shit off the grout, scour the air with bleach and curses. Instead, I had three hundred words compressed down to a skipping rock. Or one of those coasters we used to slide under furniture legs, magic for moving heavy things. I tried to will those flat stones into something light, something like a moth or damselfly, prone to fleeing. Fleeting as the years, and the flesh, and all the times I screamed at my son or drove too fast with him in the car. The times I made things up, gave someone a sense of humor or an appreciation for migrating birds. The times I pared away a bad spot, trying not to cut myself in the attempt. My mother taught me to peel potatoes with the knife rasping away from me, even though when she did it, she aimed the blade toward herself. She cautioned me not to put the skins in the garbage disposal because it never ended well. I did it anyway, of course, several times. Then everything had to be taken apart, in the dark, with the smell of mold and mouse droppings, flashlight held between the teeth, feeling for the clot. 

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