How the Day Goes VIII

YOUR BOYFRIEND GETS a job at the Ghost Factory. He works the morning shift so he’s usually gone before you wake up. After he is gone, the pillow smells like him but it’s lukewarm, the same temperature as the air, the walls, your skin, and your breath. At the Ghost Factory, your boyfriend pulls a machete off a rack on the wall and by the time you wake up and heat a cup of tea, he is hacking the ghosts apart. He finds it satisfying, your boyfriend, the way the blade bites into joints. He tosses the ghost parts into bins marked for example ‘legs’ or ‘arms’ or ‘torsos.’ There is a bin marked ‘scraps’ for genitals and heads, the useless parts of a ghost. Your boyfriend is slick with blueblack gore up to his biceps. You can’t drink your tea fast enough, the last half-inch always goes lukewarm, the temperature of the air, the sidewalk, the bus stop, your hands, and the tip of your tongue. You are waiting for the bus. Your boyfriend is staring into black eyes, carving ghosts into parts small enough to carry, or hide, or swallow.