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Layla rises like a breath in winter from the hollow beneath the black cottonwoods beside the river, shrugging off the blanket of dirt and leaves and centipedes she slept beneath. She should dissipate. She should waver and dissolve. She should ascend and alight. Instead, she starts gathering her bones.
Highway 1, Past Hope,
Maria Haskins
Keep your bones close. Set them in neat lines. The whale bone is connected to the plane bone. The women will not go quietly. The defiant bone is connected to the no bone. The state of things dissolves. A man is remembered by his mountains, not his bones. The lost bone is connected to the memory forest. Are you the rock or are you Sisyphus? The shrimp bone is connected to the bell bone. Make a run—for every border that ensnares you.