Your Life is a Fact That Does Not Matter

Your Life is a Fact That Does Not Matter
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A nickel slipped from the palm of a dying girl.

My neighbor swore it was a dime.

His pastor, a penny.

The pastor’s wife, a tinfoil swan.

We all liked craft beer and sports teams from our state.

That we could agree on.

We gabbled about baseball while the girl bled out.

My sister had cancer once.

It was the end of the world—

crying on the phone across

great distances and the best

treatments money could buy.

She got better.

She now dotes on her grandchildren

and seethes the word liberal like a curse.

She works at small tasks to give her life meaning,

as we all do.

When I tell my sister a nickel slipped from the palm of a dead girl,

she says the girl shouldn’t be breastfeeding in public

and murmurs: Jesus, whatever happened to decency...

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