Losing their stubborn will to life, the last fuschia blossoms wilt and wither, turning into tight fists the color of ferocious bruises. I know the feeling.

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I procrastinate by housecleaning. I clean the house as if it’s the mirror for my self. I sweep all its corners and nooks and under-passages, wherever dust, the afterlife of things, may hide. I dismantle the cobwebs that have accumulated since my birthday party, great clusters that suggest years have passed, rather than only a month. I free tiny corpses caught behind books and drapes: spiders, bees, flies, and weevils, whose curled, dust-draped bodies transform my house into their giant mortuary. With fury I scour each and every surface, as if to knock sorrow loose from its nesting place, and renew my connection to home with my polishing hand.

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