The antique children

that encircled all the others. Still, you attempt the leap—concentrate!—Perhaps time will collapse and fold up like a pocket telescope. No. Divinity never will be willed, and you must learn to live in time and memory. Here, where a teenage girl tries and tries, awkward, chubby, flailing arms—she falls and falls, picks herself up, curses, tries again, tears avoiding her acne, the whole sky an isolate darkness, and yet you imagine her matured into grace, head far back, arms in perfect equilibrium, someday, spinning her heart to joy.

T h e a n t i q u e c h i l d r e n

The antique children are lined like convenient deaths on a Victorian love seat in my grandmother’s store in the country. Their eyes are jewels that glitter sinister moons, apricot cheeks, but foreheads cracked with time, their smiles drowned long ago, lips parted, mouthing a silence—plump, prettied and alone. I believe they are gifted, clued to the dark, hands clutching an emptiness like gold.

Have they ever touched daylight?

Is there some memory they cannot say? Late at night I hear them walking from aisle to aisle, awkward, desperate as asylum echoes, searching for any door. I cover my ears and try not to scream as their intricate fingers claw at my lock, while their rocking horse, strung from the ceiling, rides away, rides away, rides away…