Unsettled ground by claire fuller6/27/2023 ![]() She whimpers and licks Dot’s left hand where it hangs against her thigh, pushes nose into palm, making the hand swing of its own accord, a pendulum. The dog pokes her snout through, the rest of her body following. But with great concentration she depresses it and the latch lifts. ![]() The effort of pushing on the tiny plate with her thumb seems impossible, a bodily weariness worse even than when her twins were three months old and didn’t sleep at the same time, or the terrible year after they turned twelve. The articulation is alien-the hand of an impostor. ![]() ![]() She watches her hand grasping the wrought iron, the liver spots and crosshatching seeming peculiar, unlike anything she’s seen before: the mechanics of her fingers, the way the skin on her knuckles stretches over bone, bending around the handle. Her movements must have roused the dog again because now there is a scratching at the door at the bottom of the left staircase and Dot reaches out to unlatch it. ![]()
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