you saw a lightship full of people with bodies like lilies. you saw a tree full of missing kids. hello, you called. i’m sorry. they couldn’t have been real. snails crawled past, bearing the cochleae of the dead on their backs. you’ve always been afraid that tenderness is the illusion and cruelty the true face. that there are more ways to destroy a body than love one. a spider hobbled by with an eyelash in place of a missing leg. you touched your eyelids and felt your heart hum through them. how your pupils ached adjusting to light.