When the glacier finally melted, the last of the green turned yellow and brown and the dry season came like an omen. Its white-blue ice had given water to all thirteen communities of Quispillaccta in Peru and, to women and men wise enough to receive them, messages: Plant here; plant that.
Of birdsongs, I know only three for certain: cardinal, blue jay, raven, though perhaps the last two don’t count—not as song. More call than song. More cry, by which I mean
The stillness you prize. Won’t prize you back. Two beefsteaks. Ripening on a windowsill. A purple tray. Piled with coal. From the field. Of solemn brothers calling. Your name in unison you learn. Men are irrelevant but. Persistent symmetries are not.
I’m fourteen and the smell of singed hair circles me like the halo of a pre-Renaissance Madonna. Loss already on my face. A summer crush holds out his fingers
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