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Denied or not, the logic of mistakes rings like a
bell in clear air each time. With its complex
fictions, it moves our choices this way and that,
and we sense it in the crosswalks of the city,
in the eyes of all the readers of centuries-old books
that propel their author’s mind along thin threads
into the present cluster of millennial hearts. With our
grownup names and mixed drinks, we linger under the
light of screens and wait for earthrise. The cold liquid
runs its course slowly. We hear it pause between our
lungs, like a tourist. Its sound, we imagine, is a silver
ping.
*
We abstained from celebrating birthdays and the holidays
for years under the banner of a strange religion. And when
my mother learned that we could not, under this faith, give our
blood, we stopped attending services and singing for God.
Our elders were dying and blood was all we had to give
them. Blood was where we kept our memories,
and dominion of our blood was birthright. My mother who
taught me the letters and the various ways they lie. In our first
cinderblock home, working and playing and waiting
for better news.
*
That was sad but fun. The skeleton inside you
rusts slowly, and you stop at the
intersection to record the feeling. What now?
Some people spend their allotted time
redecorating the landscape. Some people talk at each other
for comfort, while crisscrossing the room or an
empty beach. We keep our glances away from each other
and focus on the waves. The kindness of looking
away from the broken parts that hint at something
else. All the habits that stayed.
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