Spaces We Leave Empty

The jade slipped from my wrist with the smoothness of water leaving the mountains, silk falling from a shoulder, melon slices sliding across the tongue, the fish returning. The bracelet worn since my first birthday cracked into thousand-year-old eggshells. The sound could be heard ringing across the water where my mother woke in her sleep crying thief. Her nightgown slapped in the wind as he howled clutching his hoard. The cultured pearls. The bone flutes. The peppermint disks of jade. The clean hole in the center, Heaven: the spaces we left empty.