March 14, 1993
My dog hides bones in the sofa cushion crease of a house long-since burned. She ducks and dances, looks over her shoulder at shadow prey, wolves and coyotes crouched beneath the butcher block table. Childhood is like that and memory, heavy as bone, elusive as ash.
Tonight my niece is born under a cover of snow, a low cloud-curtain sky that clears to stars. My sister calls me into the room, her breath low, says, I’m not sure I can do this.
But you are, I say, and she is, despite the weight—memory, that bone the dog recovers, gnashes against gums and teeth till all that’s left are shards, reconceived, sharp and small: to bury, recover, to bury again.