Black Stocking Cap
James Backstrom
I took a picture of her in her black beanie model gaunt, still lovely with a look of framed hunger a soldier in a retreating army her brown eyes even bigger the bruising hidden in the black & white print I made.“ And why would you?” her mother asked me.
“ I have taken the cancer and the dying and flattened it out,” I tell her,“ the way the doctors never could.” I removed her from the dangers of the third and fourth dimensions— reckless growth and the passage of time, while the rest of you did nothing. Next, and this is critical, I will write down everything she was to me and to everyone else. I will keep the tainted gauze that cushioned her IV and cut out the bad gene before I rebuild her. I will read her deep memories from the bumps and crenulations of her mind I will write the code myself to hold her safe in the cloud,
And when the time is right, on a warm spring morning, when the Swainson’ s thrush sings and bees buzz and bumble from flower to flower, I will add light and sound touch and taste and smell, and her beautiful soul will coalesce before my eyes And she’ ll take my hand and we will talk about music and movies and things all that she’ s missed, but I won’ t mention the cancer or her mother’ s pathetic death watch.
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