Preserves of sardines, canned pears. A book, special order, on the History of human flight in the Americas. Salt. Harold Rose had little to work with.

That was the worst year, when you fractured your spine and I quit smoking and my thesis, in which order I can’t remember. And then the eating started again.

Oh for Christ’s sake. I turn my back for a minute. A god damned minute and they’ve set the bloody tree on fire. And of course it’s Jamie. Look at him. Bold as day.

Cold? No. I only shivered after I ate the double scoop of vanilla you forced on me; before that, sweat dotted my upper lip and I was bored by your antics, your handstands, your backflips, your silly cries for attention.

On the afternoon of December 24 my parents arrived an hour earlier than expected and I was still in my sweatpants. Dad was holding Buffy, the toy poodle. “I don’t want to leave her behind,” he said.

Weeks before Stampede, I come upon a cowboy walking in the park. Even though he’s left his Stetson in the car, I know he’s a real cowboy. He’s wearing Wrangler jeans.

Wal-Mart reindeer glitter in the window of the old-age home, a woman in a red sweater holds a red pillow and weeps in front of a fake Christmas tree.

My boyfriend, L, he’s got this doorstopper Smithsonian or Audubon field guide or something, to every animal, it seems, that exists in the world.

The injury I got when I was eighteen turned Mother and me into twins. She still rubs my wrist with mullein from our garden though she really needn’t bother: the fingers on my left hand are plastic.

I lost my pretty mother in a toy store. Entirely my fault. Despite her usual warnings, I wandered, I strayed. Up one aisle down the next. I became so bewitched by the dolls and accessories only after an hour did I turn myself in.