And for a few years, I was going to Kearney, Nebraska
to watch the sandhill cranes migrate, and little did I know,
that they migrate right here in Arizona.
So there I went in the middle of nowhere on a--
practically a glider-- coming in on Kearney, Nebraska.
But those cranes, they fascinated me,
and actually doing that helped me.
We found our word for the sandhill crane, [? sutor ?]..
And it was a word that was lost, and so it took some digging.
I mean, we didn't need it, because we hadn't seen one
where I live in quite a while, because the river has changed
so much.
But learning about the sandhill cranes and
how those migratory patterns shifted,
and how sometimes they slam into the sides of buildings
because their world has changed so drastically,
and they haven't managed that.
So it was ironic that I went to this place
to get away from home, to take a little bit of a break,
and I ended up writing this because of what happened there.
So it's called "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid
Camera."
I had a few days left of my stay at the crane sanctuary
in Kearney, Nebraska when my brother called.
It was 3:24 AM.
It's me, he said.
It's your brother.
He had taken apart another Polaroid camera,
and needed me to explain how to put it back together.
His voice was a snare drum, knocking and quick.
He was crying.
I didn't want to wake the other visitors,
and I knew he'd keep calling, hour after hour,
day after day, lifetime after miserable lifetime, until I
answered.
I slid out of bed.
Just tell me what to do.
You know what to do, he pleaded.
I should know how to help my brother by now.
He and I have had this exact conversation before.
If I love him, if I really love him,
why haven't I learned to reassemble a Polaroid camera.
Instead, I told him about the sandhill cranes.
The way they dance, moving into and giving way to one another,
bowing down, cresting, and collapsing their wings, necks,
and shoulders.
Silver curls of smokey rhythm.
But he didn't believe me.
My brother believes the mafia placed a transmitter deep
within his Polaroid camera, but he can't
believe in dancing cranes.
You think this is a joke, he whispers.
These are fucking mafiosos I'm talking about.
You're probably next.
He hung up on me.
That dawn, another writer aimed her digital camera at the sky
until the last of an island of late-rising cranes lifted
into the metallic air.
I couldn't take my eyes off the barrel of lens.
Her finger, fast trigger, against the black skeleton
of the camera.
I wondered what it would look like cracked
open to its upside-down mirrors and shiny levers.
How many screws there were.
How many lantern-lit cranes might come
unfurling out of that cage.
I wondered what I would look like if the darkened chambers
of my body were unlocked.
What streams of light might escape and reveal
about the things I collect and hide.
And is there a difference between aperture and wound?
Mostly, I wondered where my brother
keeps getting those goddamned Polaroid cameras.