Indelicacy

by Amina Cain

In books I found even more strongly my desire to write, to write back to them and their jagged, perfect words. I found life that ran close to my own.

The botanical gardens. There I could look at the tropical plants. I could sit and write among their green, rubbery leaves. And the desert plants. Among the spikes that rose out of the cacti. The spikes that rose out of me.

We all carry our lives in us, not just our problems or nightmares, but something of what we were before.

NOW THAT I HAVE so much time to myself, I wonder at my times of happiness, why I’ve been allowed them, even now when I am lonely. Why I can walk and how even walking, at the right hour, in this temperature or that one, the lights just coming on, or the sky lightening, I am able to love it. How much I am a person.