Jennifer Richter

My doctor's packed the place for years because he's known for making huge things sometimes disappear. His routine is predictable, effortless. Pick a number, any number: he's pointing to his framed pain scale. He pauses for effect. The six second sequenced faces are a kid—time-lapsed— at a magic show gone wrong. Onstage in Vegas once, the rare white tiger snapped. Inexplicable: my numbers creeping up each week. My doctor backs out quickly, as if dragged off in some beast's jaws.

and piles them on the driveway: femur, rib, jawbone with a few flat teeth attached, dozens of thin arced parts. This one for me—40 today. My birthday sent her to the woods and back. Chloe leans in on her knees, arranges the bones along a concrete seam that leads out to the street. In this next decade, she'll go: head off like today, take into her arms all she's curious about. Her line of bones makes an arrow; sun lights them like a sign. She'll go: undeniable as these bones, baffling as what animal they'd make. She's on all fours. The way I labored: some wild thing. She lays out arms and legs; the bones in line make a spine. My height. On the driveway lies my body —when it held her—inside out. The way she came: like bones. Gleaming, after living in my dark. Gleaming. So I can always find her.

The healer said to me:it worked because you thought it would. I let him palm my belly and chest; sometimes he shook and closed his eyes. Inches above my skin, he'd sweep his hands like smoothing sheets I couldn't see. I left our bed for years when I was sick. I understood our children then: bed meant missing out; bed felt like punishment. Now I sleep best at the edge—where the healer sat to rest. Your hand reches for my hip, holds on. Our children's mouths sigh open in the dark. They're not surprised: the healer touched me, and it worked. They've seen magicians — beneath the sheet that's pulled away, something's always gone.