Marylou DiPietro

Two men run through a cluster of dying trees on a small island off the coast of Maine. Is one chasing the other? Are they friends? Neighbors?  Has one slept with the other’s wife? Are they brothers?  Why are they dressed exactly alike? Do they even know each other? Are they even men? Or are they trees with gangly arms and legs? Are the islands in the distance hats that have blown off their heads?  The only hats they own. The hats they are attached to and would feel lost without. And whose house is that in the distance? Whose wife is cooking breakfast? I can smell the smoky bacon sizzling in the skillet and coffee percolating on the cast iron stove. Will her husband be home in time for breakfast, or will it all be for naught: the time she spent trying to please the boy she believed she loved and knew one day she would marry? Does she long for the man who she did not marry to come home to her instead? Does he know that she wakes each morning yearning to give him what she herself has never known: a quiet, carefree, loving home and the day in and day out of a happy life?