This house belonged to my father’s father. That road, if you can still call it that, was
shaped by my father’s mother, her hands are still printed deep into the ground, when
you walk here, you walk on my mother. My father’s voice has a tone that does not
match his eyes, so I look around and the world has changed since the last time I looked
around. There is no metaphor to convey this change—a thing changing is in itself, in
my head, a metaphor. But their faces linger on, in the evenings, and as the light dims
around us their faces flicker in the flames of their cigarettes. Sometimes they come to
me when the light starts to dim, when all barriers between the things that keep us
standing or buried fall over, dizzy under their weight, and allow the threads to spill.
Narrow alley leads to narrow alley the way your hurt led to mine. I am standing on dead
people, you tell me, I don’t quite understand what that means, but I know that dusk is
falling and I shouldn’t be here. Dusk is a blanket that tells me it’s time to go home.
Once, it meant trees and bugs waving you goodbye. Here, where the roads shrink and
the houses lean against each other, the cars complain. Too many of us beg for more
space. We are never content. I am never content. When the blankets fall, we move with
deliberation. I stand on dead people as vans carry away dying vegetables. Things move
slowly.

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