clear medicine

He thought it was a window. She thought it was a medicine bundle.

He liked to hold the flat, clear plastic square of it, turning it over and over, looking at the scraps and fragments that showed through.

She had put it together with joy in how they were together. Each piece flew into her hand from some corner of her studio. She placed them in the clear plastic envelope carefully, lovingly, details they had shared, interstices of their fret.

When he received it in the mail, he wouldn't open it, preferring to hold it and imagine what was inside, seeing it as a shifting collage of how they were.

Later, when she realized he had never opened it, she felt refused. That he did not really want to hear her truth, but only the one he made himself.