track one
Eye of the Tiger
she was a large woman,
not like birds. China Lynn, like fine; fine China, fine powder, and like leaving baby girls out on windowsills to die, she’d heard. She’d heard they did that there. She pictured the Chinese baby girls cooing on windowsills with the potted plants while the sun was shining on them till night when the cold took their breath. She was a large woman, not like her birds, and she never would have left a baby girl out on the windowsill to die. Even if she only got one. Oh, if she were only allowed one baby, she would have been pleased if it was a girl. “Eye of the Tiger.” That was the song that was playing and also that was what was reflecting in the mirror as she painted her blue shadow up to her brows: an eye of a tiger printed on the rug that hung on the wall behind her. That big, sparkling velvety tiger per petually purred at her and her little birds; seven Cockatiels, three Parakeets, and five Lovebirds. One of the Lovebirds had died, leaving an odd number. Even birds mourn. The widow didn’t sing anymore, and China imagined it would go along too, soon enough, but she told it to be strong. “Down a gin and tonic and take a look around you, lady,” she told the bird when it first stopped singing. “Death’s gonna come fast enough as it is without you calling him on with your silence.” China figured Death must be drawn to silence. Death is so silent, he must be drawn to silent people, silent places, silent things like widowed Lovebirds that have given up their song. 9
“Death ain’t coming in here, hump ump um,” China said, and tapped on the widow’s cage. “Sing sumpin, pretty girl.” Then she took it upon herself to start the singing as she rubbed some gloss on her lips. There was a tap on the door before it opened, but they didn’t really even need to knock. They coulda just walked in. “Hey, baby sis. Oh, this motherfucker been after me for something. I need to settle here for a few hours.” She wasn’t even through the door and she’d started hollering, a cigarette cascading smoke from one hand, her daughter holding tightly to her other. China replaced her makeup to the drawer and turned. Her sister smoked. “Well, you look all nice,” her sister told her. And China did look nice. Today she had on a white and silver dress shirt that hung loosely from her buoyant frame, ornamented here and there with silver necklaces and pins. She was wearing thirteen rings. On some fingers she wore two or three piled on top of each other. There were two silver spoons, smashed and bent, an opal, some thin white gold bands tied together that made clinking noises, a wedding ring with diamonds, and a tough-looking silver cat head. Her blond hair was crimped and hung down past her shoulders, pulled back with a gold headband that highlighted her high blue eye shadow. But she never felt she looked as nice as her sister, even though her sister seldom put any effort into