Free Mayflies by Sara Veglahn Page A

this mean over the fence. And now flung or thinking so. She was waked.

    Try to catch her. There, in the meadow. She traverses the region of ripples. She is transparent and obvious as she flies. Unused to such movement, she grows tired. There is a summer inside her summer. She returns to mud and is troubled. She waits. It is morning again and she is alone with the light. Three come to greet her. She sees them standing above. Her tiny eyes are confused by their faces reflected in the water.
    In the first dream I remember, I walk back and forth on a red footbridge and stop to watch the rushing water. It is like the water that comes out from the side of a dam. It is very cold and the water is several shades of gray. There’s an airplane in the sky writing a message in smoke that I cannot read. I am alone in a field. It is winter but almost spring and very muddy. I don’t like walking in the mud. I fall down into something soft, like feathers. I can’t remember anything more from this first dream.

    In the middle of nowhere (outside the outside world)
    A mother walks into the steam of a steam train and disappears
    (once upon a time)
    Two sisters run to the tracks they put their ears to the rails
    A door opens to a door and to another
    Everything river-colored
    Furrowed fields
    To get to the river and the ghost
    They must run a long way
    She is a fly in the water
    (some girls can jump through fire)
    One girl decides to leave in the night
    The constant agitation of the river bottom
    She goes to see her ghost
    When he comes to her she is unafraid
    â€œTell me what happened”
    A man walks in to a river…
    There is the whistle and smoke of a train
    They stand as it passes
    They yell into the water

    The first time I speak to a ghost I don’t realize it’s not a real person. I sit in a green chair and look out the window at the wind blowing the trees so hard I think they’ll break. I’ve been looking out this window in my apartment for a long time.
    My back is to the door of the room in which I sit and that is when I hear a low voice. The voice says my full name. I think the voice belongs to a neighbor or to someone delivering a package. I say, “Yes? What is it? Are you downstairs? I’m coming right down.”
    I reach the front door and see no one. I look all around, up and down the street. I go back inside and look in every room, every closet, every dark corner. I am not afraid. I don’t hear the voice again.

    Below the surface. The burden of air and taking it in. I’ve buried myself deep in mud and silt. My ladies are looking for me, I know. They will find me soon enough, but how will I appear?
    She is here too. She sits folded into the sediment. We hold hands and look to the sky that wavers in the wake.

    The first stage of life is water through the body. Her body is water. It is water, air, and salt. She is there in the mud. In mud she lies in wait. There is a transformation. Stones and vegetation, thorax and wings. Abdomen and legs, tail and gills. Each stage presents a great vulnerability. She flies and everything empties out. She burrows and becomes different. She lets go her anchor, lets the water go. She floats to the surface.

    One year, early in adulthood, I went to live alone on an island off the coast of Scandinavia. The rocks were hard and black and it rained almost every day. The house had many windows and sheer draperies. There was always a breeze flowing through the place putting everything into motion. My ladies either lounged in the sun or searched the beach for small shells. A young woman who looked like me came once a week with supplies. One time she told me everything about her life. I listened but she grew frustrated by my silence. Then she tried to become me and I tried to become her. We tried to switch.
    Later, when I was dying, I saw nothing but the ceiling of my room, the arcs of plaster hanging by threads, the plaster angels losing their faces. I was