The Daughters

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All my grandmother’s important stories took place in the Polish countryside. Like this one:

A woman sits nude on the branch of a tree and lets her brown legs dangle into the open air. The bark ridges cut pleasantly into her thighs, and she presses her palms down, curls her fingers around the bough.

A man walks towards her through the woods, pushing aside whip-thin limbs of birch and beech, sidestepping shrubs as he searches for his lost path. The woman hums a song, and the man’s feet begin to fall in time with the music. He does not realize that this is happening, does not yet feel his body in thrall to her.

It is a surprise, then, when he catches sight of her legs. He’s far from his village, tired and thirsty; the last thing he expected to find here was another person, particularly a woman who is naked and glorious and alone. Her feet are callused, the soles covered in dirt, and they hang before him like clothes left to dry in the wind. He follows the smooth blue ridges of her veins up to her calves, her fingers, her breasts, her neck. To the soft and downy lobes of her ears. When he looks into her face, she smiles, and his surprise becomes recognition. His thirst disappears as the scent of a nearby river fills his nose and mouth, wets his tongue. The man knows that he’s met the love of his life, and she is going to devour him.

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