Lydia Davis

Unfinished Business

Cleaning up, in the kitchen, she goes to wipe away a small black seed from the counter.
But the small black seed moves, and then walks hastily off in the other direction.
No, I am not a seed, the little bug seems to be saying.
No, it is not saying anything, but going off on its own, reminded by her sponge that it has business to do elsewhere.

Author: Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis’s most recent collection of stories is Can’t and Won’t (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2014). Her translation of Proust’s Letters to His Neighbor was published in 2017 by New Directions, and a collection of essays is forthcoming in 2019.

Plume: Issue #83 June 2018