Martyr!

by Kaveh Akbar

This gesture, this possibility, had always struck Cyrus as particularly moving—an evergreen wonder that anyone remembered him when he wasn’t in the room. That people found the surplus psychic bandwidth to consider—or even worry over—anyone else’s interior seemed a bit of an unheralded miracle.

“Lord, increase my bewilderment.” That was the prayer in its entirety.

My God, I just remembered that we die. But—but me too?! Don’t forget that for now, it’s strawberry season.