The smell of snow in my grandmother's deep backyard.
Alice's smile as I laid on top of her—a slight show of tooth and the eyes wide as if we were about to take a trip.
The smack of my mother crushing ice cubes for another cocktail.
Everyone has memories.
I listen for the boiling point in others—a certain tone of voice, a moment of combustion in the narrative.
Yet the craft of empathy, like piano scales, requires discipline. I want to be sucked in, struck dumb.
Is reticence the calling card of stability?
I prefer a hair out of place, something to be caught on—the wire of an old fence—repeating forever a sad, pretty theme. Lighting it differently, restaging it.
Is it hubris to think life has something—quite specific—to tell us? Flipping backward in the book when one is so close to its end. Still asking: What did I fail to understand?
The creamy assault of my first wedge of Roquefort, purchased because it was the most expensive—and most unfamiliar—cheese in the case. The sound of the desert wind over the bathroom skylight my first night in Palm Springs.
My first Easter with Gary.
My last walk with Jamie.
The foul rag and bone shop of the heart.
