Opium
Claudia Smith

She left us. Our mother said a house divided couldn't stand. My sister said we should stay out of the room. But I went inside. She'd left it all. On the lowboy, tissue marked with sepia-brown lipstick. Q-Tips smelling like the Orient. I took the bottle of Opium into our room. I put it on our desk. We can't keep it, my sister said. My mother's whispers, the phone pressed against her cheek so hard it looked as if she was eating it. She leaves a mess wherever she goes. Started an accident, speeding in the rain, no blinkers. Even her sheets looked slutty, never making them. My girls in the house. What if they had found it? I wanted to run away with her. I cried at night, bit a hole in my bottom lip, pressed my nails into my palms. She isn't thinking about you, my sister said. She thinks she's better than us. She says we live near the refineries, even our air is too dirty for her. I know she said it, because Mom said. We live in the armpit of the world, I said. When I closed my eyes, I tried to see her. But I couldn't. All I saw was a miniskirt, left on the shore. The color of the moon at night. It was crumpled.

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