Inheritance of hearts. 

Talk to me.

The hand-numbered spinal column.

Feeling this distance ever further, I saw my twin sister’s eyes turn the color of autumn, like flickering kerosene lamps seen from across the way in a field during the night hours. Grandmother Annelise, I thought weakly to myself. She looks like Grandmother Annelise when she grows angry.

Audible cries for help.

We nailed his shirt sleeves to the wooden planks of the dock and then raised him upside down until the pressure started to rip the fabric. We threw him backward over the edge of the dock so hard that both of his arms snapped, the nails through his shirt holding the fabric well enough for the resistance to shatter the bones. It sounded like tree branches cracking under heavy snowfall. When he flipped over he was still breathing, but one sleeve ripped entirely loose with the weight of his body sinking into the water and he started to choke, losing his breath. The pain must have been so bad that it paralyzed him because he didn’t squirm or twitch. I grew dizzy and hid underneath a maple tree and pulled my jacket up over my head so no one could see my face. But I had to get back up again to help nail one of his arms to the planks because his shirt sleeve was coming undone.