"Hard Child."
So I had two lists of names for a girl.
So what?
The president's allowed to have two speeches in case
the hostage comes home in a bag.
The geese in the metro park don't want for breadcrumbs,
despite the signs proclaiming, "The land provides them
all they need."
I was a hard child, by which I mean
I was callous from the start.
Even now, where I define myself after a grand disease or blasts
among the pasty scattering of survivors,
there isn't one human tradition I
would choose to carry forward, not marking feast days,
not assembling roadside shrines, not marrying up, not
researching the colloquialism "Staten Island divorce," not
representing paste pearls as the real things,
not recounting how the advent of photography
altered painting and soured us on the acrylic portrait
and thrust us toward the abstract,
sending us seeking to capture in oil
that which film would never be wasted on.
Umbrella stands.
Unlovely grates.
Assorted drains.
Body casts.
I typically hate discussing the past
and treasure the option, rarer and rarer,
to turn from it, as when K.'s twins were born,
and one of them nearly died.
I don't even remember which.
That's how much they got better.