Organic Matter
Each yard contained a naked mother half-buried in a tub of dirt.
Oil painting by Ashley Williams My mother loved baths. She loved them so much that, one day, she used a portion of her severance pay to buy a clawfoot bathtub online. The delivery men placed the bathtub in the middle of our yard, right where my mother asked them to leave it. It was early in the morning. My mother had recently lost her job, and over the last couple of weeks she’d spent a great deal of time watching the yard’s growth because, she said, she could not bear staring at a glowing screen for another minute. She promised me we’d be okay. My father was living in another town with another mother.
When the clawfoot bathtub arrived, my mother said, “Go play!” Then she filled the tub halfway up
