belief

I was born and the nurses swaddled me in sterile gauze to soak up the rain. I was born and my mother’s heart went missing. I was born when the Americans claimed the moon. I was born with all the whiskey I would drink sparkling like glass chips in my bloodstream. In this chilly prairie eternity, there’s nowhere to go. Those who are broken press up against death and cry to God, and this slip into belief binds us to one another. It is a murmur of an opened reliquary; all that is left of us is rippling with the river through the city. Certain bells toll and they are never heard, hidden in graves, ringing in coffins, resounding in dirt. Wanting something pretty out of grief, the widow of a radio repairman builds wind chimes from vacuum tubes and roots of grass. She belongs to those who want to hide. She considers disappearing so that she will be declared dead. Let the stars pinch shut your eyes. Be happy that joy is rare, that your name counts for nothing, that your soul adheres to your bones. Be happy, because love conquers all. Our days are relic-filled, and we stare down the long relay of twilight to darkness. Love conquers all, but we break our own hearts every time.