“Now, when you go out of the house,” I say to my two new American students, “You move your object to the lower shelf.” I put the pewter fish on the lower desk shelf to show them. “You see? Here. I am the fish, so when I leave, I put it here.” The white girl is nodding, but the black one looks confused. Liz. Kiara. I must learn their names. “And when I come home, I put it again on the top shelf, like so.” I demonstrate. “Okay? You understand?”
Glossary for What You Left Unsaid: Loss
loss, n. 1. a fireplace heats your head | & the first house you lived stretches | your memory your past | childhood | at night— 2. you believed a fat man in a red suit brought you gifts —despite | you lied to your mother seven times that year...
Topography
There was no making me speak. I was stoic as the horse made of foil on my teacher's shelf. By spring I didn't want to go home most days, so I took the long way across the field and folded the pendulous throats of the first trumpet flowers, eyeing, just...
