20071226

April

by Elizabeth Joyner

The air was thick with the smell of mold, and the heat left our temples drenched. My shirt clenched to the lowest portions of my back, and when I leaned in closer to you it felt like someone was ripping tape off my spine. We sat on the back porch, above the bog. You played the harmonica for me, the music ceasing only when you took a sip from your thirty ounce Budweiser. I wore my straw cowboy hat, sitting across from you. The southern girl in me thought it the perfect foreplay to a relationship's end.

6S

Elizabeth Joyner, author of The Shower State, is an English major. She lives in Orlando.