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Propulsion
- University of South Carolina Press
- Chapter
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58 Propulsion Cisco the green-eyed brother kicked one leg over the other, liked to tell me stories about birds, on a pier, fishing for nothing in particular. He told me stories about women named Ida who pick peaches with their breasts, and men like George Fisk with big teeth, big as a horse and hung like one too. But I was too busy being a smart ass, putting things in my nose that didn’t belong. I didn’t pay attention to the details, like the last time we spoke, that day I saw him standing on the rail, pissing off the pier, grinning at nothing in particular; that day the fish swam backwards.And even though I was caught up, I kick myself for thinking about breasts and teeth and piss, not about peaches or Ida or any Fisk that I had known and once forgotten. I can’t smell. No matter how hard I try I can’t be a fish, no matter how much I want to dream or think that one day I can. I’m cursed. I can’t go backwards. ...