Reincarnation Mnemonic

Babies are a snap, except for the mechanics of getting them to land.Lorna didn't unpack her suitcase for a week. She turned on her heel, not to disturbthe dust. Were there adoption papers? Lorna brought back long darkened formslike the horse chestnuts that dangled in the shadows they cast.I snooped in my stepmother's hall. Her door stayed shut, light beneath it.The book Catherine of Aragon was dull. As a boy, my father drank from a rusty canteen.Phil sent Lorna a letter from Mexico. That same day, my father brought homeanother library book about Catherine. The streaked binding reminded me of us.Red-winged black birds lined up, then let themselves cascade. The pinking shearswere downstairs with baby's discarded mom. Lorna sat with her tea and worry beads.Unable to bloom, we slowly regrouped and scrubbed the linoleum with brillo.Don't send blank sheets, Phil. I went with Lorna to an apartment. She had a chain from Greece.Lorna snatched chestnuts from an immense tree, topped by wires. She fled.Lorna laughed, was past the neighbor's house by now. There was another babysitter—also an ex-psych student—her name was Lois. In Home Ec, I had trouble putting in a hem.When I cut back through the alley, night was already unpinningthe chimneys from the roofs. In the dust beside my stepmother's jewels, I wrote a namedim and windless as our many lifetimes, a name to go with the cases of gin.In winter, I wiped my breath from the glass. You will live to be very old and write.It was warm in the restaurant where Lorna worked.