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59 Charity After a quarter-century, my eyes turn green. The blue they divested wasn’t good to begin with, but dry, the kind expected of a sky just through with rain—neither light nor water divined in their hue. But because the blue of my iris was the same as my mother’s carpet, her bedroom quilt and fraying dishtowels, bathroom tile and Datsun wagon, false china plates and Depression glass, I resist the giving over. I was a girl who refused the color of cherries after tasting off-brand cough syrup, holding red’s share of the spectrum fundamentally responsible. A girl whose mother bagged the red angora sweater too nice to wear just any day, saying it took too much space in a crowded closet, telling me to haul the bag to Goodwill. And now my body packs off dry blue 60 to the loading docks, takes on my father’s tone of brined olive, the green of Bermuda grass in summer when, unwatered, it grows a defiant brown about the edges. The color an unwanted gift, the green a vinegar tinge. ...

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