The summer I broke my ankle, I began to find the dead birds. I had been told light exercise would be good for me, so I hobbled back and forth along the short stretch of park by my house looking at the ground so I wouldn’t trip. Maybe that was why I noticed the birds, when nobody else seemed to.

Reading stiff off the screen
the woman, all eyeliner, fluorescent smile, asks
“If you could change
one thing about yourself
what would it be?”
Such an intimate question breaks my heart.

It was hard to ignore, this little seahorse-size thing swimming behind her taut abs, threatening to grow into a monster that would make her belly swell. Ruining eight year’s work toward playing in the Women’s World Cup of Soccer.

Cecily jogged past the rows of untrimmed rose bushes in the front yard, jumped the steps and knocked on the lime green door.

“Happy ninetieth, Nana,” she said, reaching forward to kiss the powdery soft wrinkled cheek. “Sorry I’m late.”