On la noché de las velitas, the night of the candles, my family was setting up a vigil for my dead brother in the shape of a hawk, his favorite bird.

During the post-lunch lull at Cousin Luther’s, I thought I’d discovered the cure to all that ailed me.

The office ladies have opinions. They’ve been here longer than you. They’ve worked in this office since you were in university, twenty years ago.

Maybe it’s not so bad to be promiscuous says my mom over Indian food that day we had lunch now that she’s 70 and her body has created phantom pain.

Niggling. Is the feeling, the right word. The sensation is Belladonna Blue. Like a Ford Falcon tilting on a muted roadside, dusky Oleander petals slide across the dash, one she loves me/ two she loves me still.

So then Marcia peels back her collar to show us the two white marks on her neck, like we haven’t seen them every year, these two faded knots in a parallel line glaring out from her store-bought tan and as she strokes them

No, you don’t sound like a pedophile, silly. You’re a man of God playing Yahweh's Greatest Hits, from Genesis to Golgotha. The parents at the park trust you for this reason alone.

You go to shake my hand but you don’t because I’ve bled. My nails are dark in random corners but they are not random, these corners, the state of things. I am meticulous. I

I’m not like the other girls. The other girls know things I don’t know. The other girls know the rules.