Seven Disappearances

by Rebecca Morton

I still like getting to the office early because of the quiet and how daybreak comes¹ through the east-facing windows. I water my plant and add granola to my Tupperware of fruit and yogurt. People filter in, Hi Rebecca, they say. Hi, I say back, looking up each² time. Next to me, I hear M— blow her nose. I think she’s crying. Are you ok? I ask. No, she says, handing me her phone over the cubical wall. Our office was recently remodeled and the finishes are solid and tasteful. I even have a standing desk. Jesus, I say. Where have they taken them, she says. She is³ crying. What are you talking about, E— says, dropping off a stack of presentations I left on the printer. Oh, thanks, I say, I forgot about these. M— hands him the phone. I saw this last night, he says quietly. It’s time for our Monday meeting. We walk together to the conference room. Happy Monday, we all say, mostly earnest. You’d like the new conference room. It has two walls of windows, a wall of conferencing screens, and a wall of deconstructed Lichtenstein cows. The real ones⁴, not posters. I’m always angling for a seat facing the cows. After our Monday meeting we have a meeting about tomorrow’s meeting which ends fifteen minutes early. I have a deliverable due before noon, so this is helpful. Back at my standing desk, the morning light has dissipated⁵. I'd see the sun directly above me if we had skylights. You could always tell time just by the quality of light, but I’ve never learned how. Which one isn’t a cow anymore? I identify most with the cow that’s a cow if it weren’t with the other cows, but barely. It's barely a cow⁶ on its own. A coworker sighs so loudly I hear her from across the hall. Are you ok? I ask, standing in her doorway. She looks up from her phone. She has three plants that require more sunlight than my plant because she has an office with a wall of windows. I notice one of her plants needs water, That one may need water. She presses two fingers into the dirt. Yeah, you’re right, she says, thanks. She can tell, even though it’s just dust. Anyone⁷ could.

1 Of course, I reach for you in bed
2 each morning. The world is crueler, yet I
3 compound my own harms like a child; my simplicity is
4 grotesque. My suffering
5 transitory, and still I must remind myself
6 that I am breathing. Sometimes it feels like (though it is not)
7 not breathing.

Rebecca Morton is a queer writer based in Chicago. Her debut chapbook Afterbirth (Small Harbor Press, 2024) explores her family’s involvement in the foster care system. Her work appears in Smartish Pace, The Offing, Sugar House Review, Cincinnati Review (miCRo), Cream City Review, RHINO, TriQuarterly, Poetry Northwest, and elsewhere. A recent Tin House Summer and Winter Workshop participant, she holds an MFA from Eastern Washington University. Rebecca is currently working on a collection about depression and desire.