I lied

Right now, I do want more between me than just latex. I want to be swathed in something fragile and light and weightless and surrounded only by the happy sounds of locusts humming in the July heat and a small dog crunching something smelly in the grass nearby....

Emma, just a dog

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“Intersection”

It is as if you summon them both,
Calling them
both.
The car
Comes around the corner
or
plummets down the hill
or
appears from nowhere
just as she crosses the road
highway
street
boulevard
route
avenue
and
they

Intersect…

And
It is gone.
She is gone.
The Emma I had is not here.
She will never be
My wild and stubborn
Child.
She is broken like a an overripe melon, bruised on the highway.
Dropped.
I scoop her up,
But she will never be,
Again,
Emma.

And it doesn’t seem to matter that
She weighs in at
42 pounds.
The weight is as heavy as if she were my dead sister.