Mature Woman

by Frances Gapper

Right here under my dressing gown is this huge slug of a muscular organ, pumping blood. At my age what presents as a cardio tremble or falling in love may be a squeezed stomach or a protesting pancreas. Evenings I switch on my lamp and wait for a moth to arrive. Islanded on a slip of garden land between fields, my house once attracted dozens of crazy partygoers high on brightness. Maybe they’ve been quenched by pesticides or lost the romantic urge to mate with the unfuckable. In their opinion.

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Frances Gapper has published three collections of short and short-short stories. Her work can be seen online in places including Wigleaf, the Ilanot Review, the Citron Review, New Flash Fiction Review, Splonk and Spelk. She tweets, too.