Babbling brook
and bird's milk
The stamp in the soft green-covered booklet of health, książeczka zdrowia: five onesies issued. A liter of milk collected.
The stamp in the stiff passport, the same size as the booklet of health, a little smaller actually, but not referred to in the diminutive. Paszport, not paszporcik, are you kidding, no one would ever say paszporcik.
The photo in that passport: of a child crying.
The box of sixty-four crayons. The yellow crayon that a boy borrowed and never returned, but the child couldn’t ask for it back because she wasn’t speaking just then, not that year.
The middle name she dropped, just stopped writing it anywhere, it was too much, her first name was long enough.
The voice that sang in church because it seemed a total waste otherwise, if she had to go, which she did, every Sunday, she might as well sing, singing was a kind of exercise. And dreamed of a future in which she could wake up on Sunday and do anything she wanted.
The voice that, once it figured out it was a voice, would not stop, would not turn off, ran and sang and narrated, without cease. A babbling brook.
A voice looking for its body.
A body with feet tireless as the voice.
A body with eyes that close in photos, not on purpose, it just happens, try again.
A body with the upper left arm bearing the stamp of the polio vaccine, still there forty years later.
Vaccine: szczepionka.
YOU’RE INVITED!
Behind the Pen
Unnameable Books: 615 Vanderbilt Avenue in Brooklyn
Wednesday, September 17 @ 7 PM
I’ll be reading from my story, JUNCO & WOLF, which will appear in the winter issue of A Public Space. This story is inspired by my year studying in Moscow. No one dies in this story.
The other Public Space fellows will read, and then we’ll have a conversation about craft, language, translation, folklore, and literature that inspires our writing.
Details here.
Divinity School goes out every Sunday at sunset • if you’re always looking, after some time you’ll have seen
