That Moment of Aunts, Cancer, and Stars
You know that moment of the crackle of gravel under your tires like the crackle of stars as you curve into your driveway, windows low, portals that draw you out like peach paint into a sunset the cicadas purring like shaken maracas, the trees batting the sky like the taunt belly of a tambourine, the radio sore in your throat, and you hesitate with the universe, to watch the moon tuck the stars in for bed, light stretching and retracting like the pleats of an accordion, and your chest feels as though it is in rhythm with the song, I know that moment too. But do you know that moment, where once you step inside, you overhear your mother on the phone and she’s saying that your aunt has cancer, that its stage four, and your knees are like altar knees and tongue like prayer tongues but your thoughts like atheism and the linoleum floor seems to be the only thing steady in a chaotic universe of things that shake and people who break, and you whisper in