While Waiting in Line to VoteWhen I step outside, I’m surprised to see faces swimming in front of me, heads tipped towards the raspy sunlight. I thought I had forgotten how they looked. I thought I had forgotten their voices, prancing and soaring, a symphony locked into a swelling wave. The woman ahead of me, a ballerina, mask pulled over her reddened nose, feet swaying in sync. She speaks, and I hear nothing at first, then everything. Her friend works with an organization in India. How the monsoons sweep in and ripple the cities, carefully, as if they had rehearsed a routine. Destruction that trickles down roads, light-footed, contagious. What I’m thinking of is how much color it stripped away. How much green we’ve swept, choked up, packed into cupboards until dust swallows it. How many faces we’ve unlearned. Eyes, eyebrows, the bridge of the nose. Constellations to chart and pinpoint, to stargaze in the dark, where nobody seems to exist. Behind me, the fountain spits out water, trembling under the hands of a small girl. I turn, watch the two. They seem like a separate species, fluid, a stream of pearl joined by a tiny brown hand. |
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