When your mother answers the door, you hold the baby out to her. Wrapped in your T-shirt so she won’t be naked, waving her little fist in the air. Your mother looks tired. “Maura,” she says.

You shake your head. “I can’t take care of this for you.”

Your mother bites her lip, the way Maura bites her lip, the way you bite your lip. She looks at you with fathomless sadness. “I’ve always loved you so much, Maura.” Her voice is damp. You’re not heartless. “I only ever wanted you to be happy.”

You hold the baby out again. Your arms ache from the small, squirming weight of her. Poor Maura. This smaller, poorer Maura. You wait for your mother to put her arms out, and wait. When she does, you lay the baby in them, and there is just a moment when you are both holding her, the hot aliveness of her, the newborn smell of her, between the two of you. You think of telling your mother that you’ve been considering having kids, lately. You think of asking your mother if you’d be a good mother. “I can’t hold this for you,” you say, instead. “This is yours.”

Fruiting Bodies

Fruiting Bodies

We all have ways of eating our lovers.

I like mine over rice with vegetables and a hint of balsamic vinegar.

In the evening, in our kitchen, Agnes stood naked with her hands laced behind her neck. I knelt beside her, and cut a mushroom from the back of her knee with a small, sharp knife. I dropped it into a red plastic bowl. The evening light slid like syrup down Agnes’s body. By this point, I had learned some of the topography of Agnes’s mushrooms, their patterns. Her chest will sometimes grow truffles. The backs of her knees love death caps. I raised myself to a squat, and took hold of the next mushroom, growing at the base of her stomach. I held it firmly as I slid my knife through the stalk. The trick, as with a straight razor, was to cut close to the skin without nicking her.

We had rituals for looking after each other’s bodies. When I worked construction in the summer, I would come home and lie on my stomach and let Agnes’s hands smooth the knots out of my muscles. If I made hurt sounds, she would touch my chin, the side of my face. “Hush,” she said. “Oh hush, listen, you’re home now.” At home, now, Agnes’s skin bloomed mushrooms and I trimmed them.