21: Sarah

She woke to find father and son missing. Artifacts remained—razor, sneakers—remnants of a family she didn’t deserve. Twelve years before, that stranger on the porch. Because of the heat, she’d invited him in. Daring how he’d whispered in her ear. “Impossible,” Abe had said of her pregnancy. “A miracle,” she’d said.
This morning, Isaac’s folding knife gone, too. She wandered into the woods, wringing her hands, and broke into a run when she saw Isaac on the ground, Abraham’s arm raised. Wasting no breath on screaming, she ran fast enough to sprout wings, and seized his wrist with angelic force.

20: Postcard Home

Just landed last night. Today, started exploring. So many people! Stared up at the Empire State Building. Photographed the light in Grand Central. Ate a chilidog in Central Park. Poked around a bookshop near Washington Square. Found this photo book of real murder scenes from a century ago. A woman gapes, slumped in her deflated skirts. A man, limbs crooked, is wedged into an alley. Looked at every picture, cringing. One hundred years should erase any nausea, the costumes and wallpaper like a diorama. So many people, so what about these few? Except then I remembered it always ends this way. Always.

19: Here's Me

My sister invented the game. At six, she was the source of all such wisdom. Stand on your twin bed, pillow puckered under your feet. Announce, “Here’s me.” Fall face-first onto your bed, giggling. It was fun because our mother, on the phone, snapped her fingers for quiet. She hated the game, maybe for the same reason, as a graduate student, it troubles me. Children invented ring-around-the-rosy during the bubonic plague. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down. From the seminar table, my sister’s game looks like a manifestation of life’s tragedy: here and then gone. How we explained my father’s sudden absence.