Today I sit with hal and joan and watch the short masts on the river, feel the day on our faces. Hot. I ask them questions that they answer with lies and tell me of their broken backs and hips and hearts instead. It is better. They are old, and their skin has lifted like paper in the sun, their hands have grown roots like trees that tangle and warp. They are bent over at the waist and wear suspenders broad over their bellies, rounded like the earth. Hal is testing his sisters memory and eyes, showing her photos from their youth, faces that she cannot make out or remember. One is of nel, and she is wearing a white hat and a white dress with flowers on. On the back is written the dates of her birth and death and ‘my first love’ in the way an old man would write them. He is old now, and his wife is dead, and he holds the photograph as if it was the most precious thing on earth.

Afterwards, I drive with the window down to rush air through the car, over the bridge and by the river, to this white space with drawings on the wall. Many people will walk past here today. i will remember not to forget the way that everything touches everything else.