John the Posthumous by Jason Schwartz

suffered nor wept, walking the lot haltingly, from a corner formed by hazels, around said curve, thence north 86 degrees, 44 minutes, 29 seconds, a distance of fif t y feet to a point or site of conclusion on the eastern line.
    On the street map: a creek, a park, a boulevard.
    The survey refers to a lane rather than an alleyway. A revised version, dated two days later, corrects this—but mistakes several letters in my name.
    Some Colonial maps are adorned with bridal inscriptions or memorial borders. I gather, however, that diagrams of fire are rare even in the earliest specimens.
    Lot: 7. Block: 23.
    Red arrows—and the letter P, reversed—mark the iron rods, capped, that appear as zeros in various places.
    Radial, north side: 118 feet. Radial, south side: 125 feet.
    A rood, in England, is a quarter acre—but may evoke, in the New World, animals in the kill. The sky is dead leaf or king’s yellow or burnt lake—at least as the field books have it.
    The survey of the Burton property, on Court Street, in Germantown, Pennsylvania—purchased 1930; aban doned 1931—indicates, at the bottom of a pond, a treeline and a tiny folly.
    The Gunter’s chain has one hundred links, steel wire. The choke is a brass device—akin, in certain depictions, to a compass—trampled in the grass, or lost one morning in a forest. The dials sometimes resemble headless birds.
    Tract: 8. District: 16.
    I mark a large square in the garden, its western edge ten feet from the property line.
    Some Colonial maps display rows of daggers, for fenceposts, and rows of cannons, for houses. The bell tower is often replaced with a list of solemn phrases.
    On the county map: a mountain range, a river and a bridge, a turnpike.
    The survey places my wife’s name beside mine. The name of the town appears just above a signature and a date, and just below a single black stroke.

ADULTERIUM
     

ONE
     
    D ecline implies a distant relation. Better this, you know, than Henry or Edward. Poor John is all alone on the porch. Another name is written out, in black ink, on the headboard and on the bedroom wall. Butcher is our favorite shade of blue. Quietly , on the other hand, offers a view of the husband from the house. In this case, the victim sits in three parts. A clattered bone is homelier than a drowned wagon. The sticks, such as they are, appear at a peculiar angle. The dead card is read at the garden wall.
    The ashpit attracts finches rather than bats, but the housecoat catches fire anyway.
    Long affliction is worse, of course, in August. The lawn is brown, spoiling things every morning. The afternoon begins with Miss Milligan in a corner room. It concludes with stewed tripe, or with aspic and a knuckle of veal.
    Our house seems meager between the trees.
    Wasting, for near relations, offers little scenic detail. In this case, a souvenir cracks in two. The blade is the face and the haft the body proper. It follows, often, that the ladies wait at a train station. As a matter of course implies the nighttime attire. The shift exhibits a chain-stitch, worn on the wrong side. Killdeer and sparrows are found in the piano. Laurel, it appears, cannot come down after all. We are so sorry to hear about Dorothy and Anne. Another name is written out, in black ink, on the back of the attic door.
    A staircase will do for the swoonings.

TWO
     
    T he knife recurs as a figure in certain rooms. Take the parlor, where the matron, aflame, parts the drapes—and the bedroom, where brown ants cover the haft.
    Have a better look.
    The spine, despite its color, whatever this may be—I imagine you find the light as dim as I—dates the item. The break remains the break—in halves, to the left of the letters. The pike hides the rust very nicely.
    Your carving articles, years ago, might include a little brass hook, this to remove the eyes. A scullion would address the red tables. An abigail would attire the girls, were there any. These cleavers, of the kind we were accustomed to in