Fall 2023

You told me your mother-in-law kept holy water in a mayonnaise jar on her dresser.

“Are you two homos?” my mother asks her nephew and the light-skinned Parsi boy sitting beside him.

Salvation – A Prelude – 2021

My arms stretch wide, in line with my breast bone, then reach back a fraction of an inch farther, popping my chest forward—the two actions happening in near-imperceptible unison.

Then release. Chest pop, and release. In time to pulsing hip-hop music. Synchronized with those around me.

My chest must’ve moved this way—isolating just the box of the thorax—hundreds, no, thousands—of times throughout my life. But today, due to shutdowns caused by the pandemic, my chest has not moved like this in over 442 days. It’s the longest I’ve gone without being in a proper dance studio, moving in close proximity to other people, collections of heat and focused concentration, my body absorbing their vibrations. Speakers radiate bass and mirrors reflect myself back to me, illuminating a truth more real for me than actual flesh and blood. I’ve felt like a ghost, disembodied, without this view through the glass. And I wonder, is this past year what a life without dance—without my constant, ever-evolving companion—would have felt like? This stifling invisibility?

So today, when my chest pops forward, a valve releases. Stagnant emotions caught in my thighs, lungs, abdomen for over 442 days gush to the surface. Undulate down my spine, drip from my arms, blast into the atmosphere. Today, I feel like myself again for the first time in over 442 days.

Today, I am dancing.

A person cannot be blamed, can she, for ending up with all the covers on her side of the bed, the way her unconscious body wraps itself in and around the quilt, gaining one inch at a time? Even if this happens night after night, the blanket always moving laterally in the same direction, toward the bedroom door, until it hangs six or eight inches (maybe more) from the left side of the bed—even then, a person cannot be blamed for what happens while she sleeps.

A small tag—graffiti—decorates the railing, sixty feet above the Mississippi River.

The best dessert is red Jell-O from a hospital cafeteria, eaten while on-call.

Red Jell-O, set to perfection directly in clear plastic cups, topped with whipped cream squeezed from a can, the snowy tip slightly smushed by the plastic dome cover. I find this upgrade from graham crackers and tins of room-temperature orange juice, stolen from the cabinets on the hospital floor, at dusk in the hospital cafeteria. Instead of the rush of people during the day, stopping quickly in the cafeteria to eat on their way to the next appointment, there is only me, one cashier, and food wrapped tightly in plastic wrap in a refrigerated glass case. I slide open the other side of the glass cabinet to reveal my single dessert option for tonight, setting it on the melamine tray. The Jell-O wobbles but maintains its presentation as I walk to the cashier.

My patients are tucked in, which means I’ve checked on them, talked with families, followed up on aspects of their disease or management, and I need a snack.

Our mother found the photograph last year, during the month she cataloged family archives and sent images daily, blurry scans attached to her emails. in the subject line, she wrote, “only photo of eric and i.”

It was a Tuesday morning. My inbox pinged. I clicked my mouse on the photo to enlarge it.

Dear Brother, I’ve decided to write to you as if you’re alive. Only photo. Only brother. Our mother, photographed by our father. Your terrycloth jumper, the wide brow of your forehead, your eyes downward, lids half-closed. Your name, from the Old Norse, Erikr, made of two elements—the first ei, meaning “ever, always,” the second rikr, for “ruler, and mighty.”

You look peaceful in our mother’s arms. I love how she’s rolled your sleeves back—the jumper is too large. It would have fit better in a few more weeks. I imagine its buttons sliding into the little ivory holes as she dressed you. I imagine, because I’ve adored my own infant, how she kissed your eyelids and the top of your head, how your throat pulsed as you nursed. When I struggled to feed my son in the hospital, a night nurse told me, “Watch his throat to see if the milk is going down,” and I did, touching my baby’s warm skin. A miracle—he was drinking and alive.

Dear Brother, I’m trying to see you with these words. Is this why I’m writing, to imagine you alive?