Thursday, December 16, 2010

How You Tell It

Here are my notes:

Your account includes fragments - dozens of rough gemstones - pulled from the pocket of your baggy jeans, tossed in the air between us, and permitted against the rules of physics to float while we banter over which five or so can connect to create the truest line from then until now.

You select stones for their sharpest edges - your mother sold you to another woman who, finding that she could not keep you, gave you to a third woman, who came away with you from war fire, charred homes, missing limbs, fallen lives. She, then, hit you and called you by names to make you small. In the story you tell, you survived but now float, lacking root, bleeding, lost and lonely. In repeating this sequence each day, you have established it as a form of stubborn proof.

I would have wanted to hear a different account – a polishing made possible by time, distance, age. But to ask and to ask brings nothing new. As before, you designate the ending by the click of your tongue and a slap that sends the unnamed stones to the ground.

By now, I know you will have it your way.

December 16, 2010