Sing, Unburied, Sing

by Jesmyn Ward

Before all the little mean things she told me gathered and gathered and lodged like grit in a skinned knee.

But it was impossible to not hear the animals, because I looked at them and understood, instantly, and it was like looking at a sentence and understanding the words, all of it coming to me at once.

She has a pretty voice, the kind of voice that sounds good singing low but sort of cracks on the high notes.

Sometimes the world don’t give you what you need, no matter how hard you look. Sometimes it withholds.