What’s our name? The furthest thing visible to the naked eye?
her tongue feels nothing. Her tongue is that of a dead cow, lying huge
and slack upon the kitchen counter. She does not feel the urine
The strong clarity of her handwriting, the unhesitating flow of her pen
across the paper, line after line, seemed at odds with her circumstances.
Rarely was a word crossed out or changed. It was as if she knew exactly
this big bird isn’t too bright
looking down the mouth
growing concern
may have been a political opponent
cultural memories
shot down, shut
off, shunted
to the attic
long grass washing up against rock
narrow ladders, past the great bells in their yokes, to a point a hundred
feet aboveground, where a trap door led to the open air of the arched
lantern, above which rose the church spire. Steadying themselves on a
slightly canted roof, they looked over the whole of the city, the long
sweep of the river, and the farmland of New Jersey to the east. The breeze
at that height was like nothing to be felt in the streets below
which the brain generates neural circuits
and the child’s experiences determine
which ones survive. The first year of life is a
critical period for this ‘experience-guided
growth’—and it’s not hard to see how a sud-
den shift into high gear might derail it. The
brains circuitry would expand haphazardly
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