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<strong>Switchgrass</strong> <strong>Review</strong> • Vol. 6 21<br />
Phyllis Rittner<br />
The Size of <strong>Love</strong><br />
They embraced in her foyer. Her throat ached with half-swallowed sentences.<br />
This scene, rehearsed, attempted and aborted for ten years, finally over.<br />
Alone, she stared at the key moist in her palm.<br />
She erased every digital trace, scrubbed and saged the apartment, fell<br />
asleep to the blue light of the tv. His side of the bed, still molded with his<br />
impression, she crowded with stuffed animals.<br />
She went vegan, then paleo, then skipped meals, binging and purging until<br />
the gym scale revealed his favorite number. She took up African dance,<br />
stomping floors in bare feet. Nights she filled spiral notebooks, dissecting<br />
every conversation, her pen slicing each page.<br />
Months dissolved into a year. Carrying a box of framed photographs to the<br />
basement, her eyes fell on his worn leather work gloves. Laced with cobwebs,<br />
they lay face up, like an offering and she flung the box down the stairs.<br />
She dog-eared recipe books, baked focaccia bread and cannelloni, traded<br />
her skinny jeans for a red silk dress. Illuminated by the glow of candles, she<br />
soaked in scented baths, exploring her new curves with manicured fingertips.<br />
One night she lingered in a pub to prove her body was real. That’s when he<br />
spotted her in the bar mirror and sparks trickled down her spine. But as he<br />
spoke, spouting a stranger’s desires, an emptiness spread like gravel through<br />
her belly. He was mid-sentence, studying his reflection, when she rose,<br />
weaved through the crowd, escaping into the leap of night.
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