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But there’s nothing I can touch, she says haphazardly, her eyes switching back and forth between what she knows she should do and what she’s always done. Her plea is invisible and her thoughts don’t stick. She is afraid to look at her hands. A bird crawls on top of the wall.

It’s done, it’s over. She taps the words out with a stick made from a tree that fell inside the harsh grope of a hurricane. The stick had impaled a small child through the eye. She holds it as tight as she can, until it makes a hum in her hand. She thinks of throwing it at the bird. She thinks of hitting her feet. She lies back and counts the grass stains in the clouds.