PoINTILISM

Her thoughts pixilate. She speaks in pin points and ellipses…wants you to sign on the dotted line to surrender to her point of view.

Once she punctured her extremities. Stippled poinsettias suggesting pink petals on the tapering tips of her fingers and toes. Each day was a garden walk. She never needed to cut flowers. She showered with flowers, dried herself with flowers, pleased herself with flowers.

She bloomed all year calling to mind Christmas scents…mincemeat apple-walnut hot butter…a trio of tarts. She liked to sew popped corn garlands and wrap them around deciduous trees. She dropped trails of the crisp kernels in snow and named them vanishing points.

She developed a habit, entirely useful, of stiffening her index finger like a dog’s taut tail. She trusted her fingertips would lead the way; they became an essential detail that completed a set of directions. She liked to drum her fingertips against the thin skin of her wrists while considering questions... a bouquet of moments... or a momentous bouquet?

She never believed that life was pointless. She was reminded of death at every turn. Her mother’s premature point of no return left her terminally marking pauses—which became the punctuation of the dead. Red poinsettias were her mother’s funeral shrubbery—faded plastic wish you were here’s on a grave she didn’t tend. She preferred to remind herself of livelier points of departure. Like Seurat’s paintings her indelible inks were indivisible, they were a still point to which she could always return.

—karen lewis

In The Margins occasionally includes flash fiction alongside the poetry, features, interviews and book reviews. In The Margins seeks submissions of flash fiction, meaning complete stories running 500 words or less. Stories longer than 500 words will not be considered. Send submissions to flash fiction editor Forrest Roth at avflashfiction@yahoo.com or mail them to Flash Fiction Editor, Artvoice, 810 Main St., Buffalo, NY 14202. Please include SASE for return of manuscript.