Control

Control I had taken her in from the rain. Driving away from another fight with my wife, I had seen her by the road, soaked, red dress clinging to her the way that rose petals will sometimes cling to the water's surface, hair tressed over her cheeks like the flaws of midnight, groceries in hand. Just some young lady. And the gentleman in me just could not stop, felt compelled. She would not tell me her name, but she invited me in anyway. And as I sat across the room from her as she made us tea, I didn't say a word. I let her talk about all the things in her life that she once had control over. I learned about the job that let her go and the mounting bills, her grandmother's funeral and the lack of lilies--her grandmother's favorite. She told me about her third miscarriage a few weeks before, the damp blood that awoke her, the noise no human should ever have to make... I realized then that I had heard enough. The midday light broke through the curtains as I moved closer to her, and the patterns of the fabric pressed their monograms of shadow over my body. And I took her, this stranger, this woman I did not know into my arms, and felt her press her face into my shoulder, like the pigeons of the city who love each other, and escape the rain together.