Escape Velocity

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What is this life? Fault lines and power lines, veins tangled up inside my sleeve.

 

A white cross in the grass, a roadside memorial to the motorist who’d died a year ago, already forgotten; the paper flowers long-since frayed, the teddy bears now bleached by sun and snow.

 

It’s hard to disentangle memory from dream, and dream from memory, when it’s all liquid, shimmering and rushing past.

 

If only I could trace the shape of shadows or count the rings inside a still-living tree:

 

I was four years old when my brother Colin was born.

 

My dad had led me into the maternity suite, my mom smiling, eyes wet:

 

“This is your little brother,” she said of the red, shriveled newborn on her chest.

 

My mom had a perm in those days and even without makeup, even moments after labor, she was beautiful.

 

“It’s ok,” she reassured me.

 

She then handed me a Sonic Flashers NASA rocket that featured lights and sounds.

 

“Colin got this for you,” she said. And I believed this:

Reasoning that if he'd gone to the store in his blue knit cap and little tiny socks,

 

he must already love me, I thought.

 

Even now, they try to tell me that the universe is mostly empty, but I find that hard to believe.