SHAWL PATTERN — MELANIE DUNBAR
/—This Piece was awarded First Place in the 2015 Micro-Fiction Contest—
He is determined to make the six hour drive to the Christmas party without stopping. She is knitting; it’s a new pattern, with a skein of wool the color of November’s leaves rotting in the gutter. She has to pee.
“You’ve been pissed off for the last six months. What’s the matter, you goin' through menopause?”
She doesn't say anything then. She counts stitches, self-soothing with the rhythm of knit 2 purl 1 yarn-over and repeat. At some point between the car and the party she says some words that he understands. The rest of the night he drinks gin.
Melanie Dunbar lives in Southwest Michigan with her family and their rooster, Mr. Beautiful. Her poetry and flash fiction can be found at Your Impossible Voice, Silver Birch Press, CHEAP POP, and also is forthcoming in Gargoyle and Sweet: A Literary Confection.
