Choosing which palm to extend for a brief
relief is the same as favoring one wrist
for cushion. It has to give up at some point,
like orphaned coins that linger in corners
of an abandoned school that now covers her.
She has accepted that sunrise does not give
comfort. It disturbs all broken objects: the
weight on her hand and the cardboard flayed
by night's sweat. She concedes to the blackness
of the estero as it swelters, that amber flusters
even the brightest things: the faith-worn nave;
a balloon-holding boy who breaks his fall
with open fist; the splattered mango she had
wanted now one with dirt. Meanwhile,
the night beckons memories of petrichor,
and of her mother's palms of mud. Greeted
by shadows of harvests, she longs for
bulging watermelons bigger than she holds.