Words for Empty and Words for Full

a history of origami

64 a history of origami two women in three days cried on the green bench in the park where i found a dollar folded into a boat. i thought it was the crying bench and cried on the crying bench when it became available. i cried by thinking of all the people who’ve never broken a shop window, not the baker’s window, the bead-seller’s, who sells beads for purposes i find hard to list: necklaces, the hanging of strings of beads in doorways, the owning of beads just in case. breaking a shop window with a piece of shale the size of my heart, a piece of shale on which i’ve drawn my heart, not my actual heart but my feelings of my heart, since i’ve never seen my heart, would set something free. i don’t know what that something is but it would be free. and my heart would have survived its travels through glass, its jagged voyage through my reflection. hicok pages i-120.indd 64 1/7/10 3:23 PM 65 you see now why i cried: none of this is real. until i can answer “yes” to the cop who asks, is this your heart among the ruins of your reflection? i won’t be a man, despite what my anatomy insists. it insists that i overcome a sense of resistance when i move, that i move as long as i am able to move, and when i am unable to move, that i stop. it would be free and look like a bird, an actual bird or a dollar folded into a bird, a dollar bird in a dollar boat. which is to say i believe origami arrives when we need it most. i can’t prove this but i can’t prove you’re a good person though i suspect you’re a good person. you who opened the door. you who tipped your hat. you who ran into the fire and carried the fire safely out. hicok pages i-120.indd 65 1/7/10 3:23 PM ...