Streetfables

She is looking for you.

She is looking out for you, and she is looking for you, those leftovers of you that they couldn’t destroy. The bits that the enemy scattered, thinking that it was good enough to do you in. It wasn’t.

So around and around she goes. She goes to the Lower East, and fishes your fingers out of the trash. The lid of a cardboard box strewn among the flower shops on 29th street hides your lower jaw. At the Hell’s Kitchen antique fair, your spinal column rests on a stack of old records, perfectly intact. In his sleep, a dog gently gnaws on your thigh bone under a park bench along the Hudson River. She removes it without waking him, kissing the top of his head.

With your bones safely in her messenger bag, she hops on her bike and rides north. Chasing cars, playing chicken on the highways, off to fetch what turns out to be your ribcage and your kneecaps. How they wound up in the Bronx is anybody’s guess…

Her bag bulges as night falls. She slips into an alley somewhere and lays your bones out on the ground, putting everything in its place. The she starts to sing.

Blood pools around your bones, then flesh, swelling around your bones like a swarm. She sings of tides.

Your flesh molds itself as perfectly as it once was. Your eyes open to the sight of a sickle crescent moon in the hazy sky, framed by the tops of buildings and barbed wire. You hear singing, and feel a tug in your new heart. It makes you want to move.

You scramble to your feet, oblivious to the broken glass, unaware that you are naked. Your heart screams and you run out of the alley, towards your second chance.