The Glenohumeral Joint
“Light dawns gradually over the whole,” Aristo said. I knew what he meant. I looked at details, pieces, bodies understood as body parts, and understood what had befallen a person. I’d been the medical examiner in Astoria for nearly twenty years. But he didn’t know I’d studied philosophy, had my crush on Wittgenstein, pictured him resting his head on Klimt’s bony shoulder, the two of them looking at The Kiss. I could have tried impressing Aristo, detective. Instead I looked at his very nice mouth, remembered how, two nights ago, he’d come to Kelly’s Bar on Crescent, where I drink, and tried to take me home. He had not yet tried again. The young girl’s nude, dead body he’d found on 33rd was at the morgue. “Let’s go,” I said, slipping on my jacket, taking advantage of how close he stood to me and kissing him. He kissed me back.
Chaya Bhuvaneswar’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Awl, Narrative Magazine, Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Narrative Northeast, Redux, Compose, aaduna and elsewhere. She is at work on a novel.
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Image: detail of art by Gustav Klimt
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Jellyfish Review 
