Fermata

We drank clear broth; none of us could eat. We wanted checkered yellow sheets, but switched to white when that seemed noisy. Hours we stared at lines on our palms. Desiring stillness, we held breath as Debussy drizzled in. Thought of dirt-flecked feet, gardens in early October. When our irises lit green, when bodies were trellises over which other skins pushed up, tipped back to drink light.

One woman's shopping cart had to be sawn from her hands, so for days she carried a plastic-and-metal bar. Her sons tried to take it from her, but her husband quieted them with peeled oranges.

Deep in an alley a child in a tattered dress traced, over and over with chalk, the line of her legs, buckles on her shoes. When we forced her away she dreamt the shape of her knees, and pulled a pillow to her mouth.

The postal carrier couldn’t let go our letters. He gazed at the perforated edges of stamps we’d carefully pressed to the envelopes. We watched the moons on his thumbs fade. He sat on the steps of the closed museum with his head turned to skyscrapers. We wondered if they might slit open clouds and drop something stationary; something to hold.