“So the shell of me came + I felt sort of like the ones I would find on the beach. The ones that were weathered, cement-looking, cragged, white-gray + hard, but somewhere still porous. I would pick them up from the thick, sinking sand + hold them up to the red, setting sun in front of me. I held them in my hand tightly, feeling them break the skin because I was water-weary + cellophaned. The waves would push into mt legs + the wind would blow. I could have been just dust + bone, with a heart like clay + no blood left in it that broke apart in a sandy sort of way. But after becoming a mother, I was not afraid of death, not afraid of pain, just very, very wary of the wind.”