Forlorn Lovers

I imagine Finola is madly in love with me. It's the only way I can keep from responding to her stares with derisive inner dialogue or sadness. And anyhow, it's more fun this way.

I glance to the left of her earlobe, off into the coming evening, repeatedly. She thinks I'm looking at her and gazes longingly into my face. Her heart drops with disappointment to find I am not searching for tenderness in her eyes. I sweep a strand of hair, slowly, behind my ear, running my fingertips down my neck. She wishes I would do the same to her. I spoon rice to my mouth. She fantasizes about my moving lips. Poor Finola. Love-struck so quickly, and to such little avail.

She's an interesting character, Finola. Spent her whole life in alternative communities where she consumed nothing but raw, organic veggies and worked for no pay, simply subsisting off of that which the community afforded her. She wouldn't eat a processed-sugar-filled candy bar if her life depended on it. She'll glare that I-love-pork smile right off your face. She's hippie and she knows it.

Yes, Finola has never so much as pointed her toe anywhere but left—suckled The Revolution instead of breast milk; stood with the support of Free Will instead of table legs; sucked home-grown carrots instead of lollipops. And she thinks herself superior for it, a fact she's not shy about displaying.

There's something about me, too, that seems to invite her judgment. She's a fan of scoffing just loudly enough so I can hear, and that smile on her face always has a mocking curl to it. I try to engage her in some friendly chatter, dialogue about the shape of change, joke about yankin' weeds, but she only gives me that downward glance and a tight-lipped grimace.

Well, but that's love, ain't it?

I sing softly about forlorn lovers now as we scrub organic four-angle bean remnants from silver pans with homemade rice enzyme cleaner, our bodies bent over the sinks, laboring side by side.