In Memoriam: Human Hands

I pull my metal chair up to this glass table with my morning cup and unshakeable sadness. The violets in their plastic pottery spread and droop, withered heads of blood and rust curled in on themselves, ready for burial like composting beautiful, spent fruit. A single silver strand arches and shines beside me on the porch. No visible web, only this simple sturdy thread, tiny rope from which the morning spider must have propelled itself. Or perhaps its construction was made in the night and abandoned with day. Tiny bowl of orange, body mostly belly, skittering into hiding when the humans wake.

Here a burst of sage burns in a shell atop a red shawl spread on the city’s plaza. Priests and politicians on the bandstand. Around the city perimeter, native yucca sends up its tall, protective spikes. Century plant’s tightened coil unbraids itself, surrenders shoots nearly drained of color now. The opposite of surrender: fists exploding.

At the scene of the shooting, we are shown how dancers lifted a man in a wrap of
human hands as stretcher and carried him away, toward safety. Down to an ocean of
armed cars. Lit in red. Swirl of blue and shock. Blinding, this shuddering night. Another trapped in the bathroom with only his cell phone, a small rectangle of light, texting his mother that he believes he is going to die. I nearly cannot type this part of the story. But I must.

Lift the bowl, and swallow all their names. Make them mine. The quiet and the shattered.
Their haven of night. Broken into come morning. The thread that risks the slope from
solid into air. Without a net.

In Memoriam: Akyra, Alejandro, Amanda, Ángel, Anthony, Antonio, Brenda, Christopher, Christopher, Cory, DJ, Deonka, Eddie, Edward, Enrique, Eric, Frank, Franky, Geraldo, Gilberto, Jason, Javier, Jean, Jerald, Joel, Jonathan, Juan, Juan, Kimberly, Leroy, Luis, Luis, Luis, Martin, Mercedez, Miguel, Óscar, Paul, Peter, Rodolfo, Simón, Shane, Stanley, Tevin, Xavier, Yilmary. (Orlando, Florida, June 2016)

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