Emily Pérez

Each time the babies came I knew they would be gone by morning. Bright as bulbs turned out of beds, hard and full of promise. Bodies on the brink of unfolding. I could not hold them and I could not hold them long enough. It was a sin to let them in. I did not expect them to stay. I did not expect their forgiveness when I turned away.

on a line from Szymborska My departure from the city of O.? I took no leave. I’d learned to sleep angry. On a train I was contained. The water under the bridge was just that. Shunned metaphor. It did not send waves of regret or make me reflect. It did not baptize, wash away, or cleanse. The countryside appeared like the sides of any country where rain falls and cows chew yellow flowers. The world was not too much or too much with me. I stomached it. In the photograph I only look lonely because I was alone. You cannot see the envelope on my lap or the letters lodged under sweaters in my suitcase. I carried only one bag, what I could manage in a crowd. You can imagine I held a thick book from which nothing could distract me. You can imagine my head high, eyes dry. I did not see my departure as a failure, or a fall. I’d dodged a bullet. Been reborn. You can imagine it that way. Only none of it was like that, not like that at all.