Mistakes We Have Made

We have not cried enough or bowed to the proper gods. We have ascribed our good fortune to birth on the right land mass. We have listened to jazz and/or purple finches for whole afternoons, spilt ashes and/or salt too often, we have not been concise. We have made our children smile for the camera, we have memorized the dates of war and watched horror for pleasure. We have let sunlight perforate our velveted rooms and screamed for mercy in arm wrestles. We have pranced in auditoriums in tulle and lace and from under thin veils we have professed the beginnings of a love never felt before. We have doodled, we have waded in oceans, we have been afraid of the wrong things, we have pleaded with a deity just slightly more powerful than Steve Jobs. We have wrapped our tongues around ten-syllable words like overintellectualization. We have read the papers and cleaned the hamster cage and drank from the wrong side of the cup to get rid of hiccups, we have spun rings on thread and asked for the answer. We have received the answer. We have not accepted anything, because in the space—even potential space—between question and response, that space as it is between eyelashes, words, clothing and skin, between each barb of a feather, between bad and worse, Japan and North America, anything is possible. We have turned our backs to the water and opened our arms to other arms. Torso to torso, we have gathered strength. We have hoped that hope is enough, that love is, that when we cast our lines into the sea we will reel in fish.

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