FLASH
At twenty, the world is yours because you’re beautiful. But never acknowledge your beauty, or it makes you a bitch.
I’d never heard of anyone having a second baby right after the first one, but everything was so strange in those early days of motherhood that I just acted on instinct.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
Another image rises to us both: A man hunched before a TV, watching historical documentaries, correcting incorrect facts. Rasputin was not a priest, damn it.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
Mama sped along the highway, unbothered by bits of gravel that flew up from the front tires and struck the windshield of the sedan.
The new octopus at the children’s aquarium was named Athena, and as we waited for her to emerge, I thought of the almost-too-faint second line on the pregnancy test three days before.
I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.
Kate Winslet always reminded me of my mom. Maybe that’s why, even to this day, I get defensive of Rose from Titanic when people call her stupid or shallow…
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.