Daucus Carota, photographer unknown, 2006
If it wasn’t for that neural trick no stories could make their way from lips to ear, or from then to now. I couldn’t conjure myself at six, at ten, my heart open to the queen anne’s lace and its amethyst heart at the center of the umbrel; couldn’t recall the fear, the bloody wet ruby of my skinned knee. Limping home, crying for my dad to help me after I fell off my bike. He was there, gathered me up, cleaned and dressed the wound, wiped my tears. And now he’s neither there nor here, he’s dust, and the child I was tells me a story I need to hear (of course he fell short, of course, but it’s also so simple and good—just a child, bleeding stopped, tears dried). Z"L, what’s written as we murmur their names, our beloved dead.
