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MORNING APERTURE / Damián Whalen Awake two hours early, you hear rain beat gravel outside. It didn't wake you but now it won't let you sleep. You drink a Pepsi at your desk and tie flies from rooster hackle and thread so thin the fish won't know until it spits. As a boy, you waited dressed under blankets for your father's voice at your bed— your gear careful in a row and sandwiches hard in their sack. You don't remember fish exactly, just hours awake in the dark anticipating the surface. You wonder if there was a boy. You want to feel your legs skinny and deep in the cold water, numbing insect bites and leaving a tidemark across your thighs. You want your hands small gripping once more a river in suspense. A picture hangs above your desk: A boy poses outside a chicken coop in sweatshirt and morning cowlick. Palms extend—a brown egg cupped in each. He is no longer you. He belongs in a frame holding years up to a stranger with hands steady as the rain. The Missouri Review · 29 ...

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