When I lie on the ground, face down in the carpet, penitent with thankfulness for a life undeserved, for beauty and happiness unmerited, grateful for the stars and the starlings, for the grass and the leaves and the bound-up bales of love I’ve been given, I know what is coming. I can hear the voice of their mother egging them on. Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Daughters on my back, kisses and laughter in my ears. A son’s hands on my ankles, straining for the day when he can flip me easily. A smaller son, with few words to his tongue, grinding his young skull into mine, twisting and
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