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227 Lines T he lines on her face are roads to the war. They cut the skin and put mud, they put the ground in her blood. Now it’s like looking from the air, like the roads cut in the jungle I saw from the plane. She’s going back. She has to. I look at the scars. I keep looking at them. She’s going to the war. I look at her arms. They are big and strong. She won’t die. A bubble in my chest is getting bigger, “Why? Why do you have to go?” It’s in the air floating away from my mouth. She looks at me. The middles of her eyes are black. They are mirrors. There are babies in them with bellies like balloons. There are bodies covered in ants. There’s a man lying on his back with a hole through his chest. The ground is dark all around him. It’s a blood bath. My father’s voice. She’s wearing her white dress. I want to hold the hem and never let go. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here. She spins away from me, the white dress unwinding like a bandage. She is naked. She is going. Christine. Christine. I look at the ground again, sticky and crimson . It’s the ground she has in her arms. The man lying dead is 228 where she grew yams. It is home. They put home in her blood. “What are you going to do?” She is walking down the line, the front line, like a tightrope, her arms out on either side, balancing, and nobody is shooting. Everything is quiet. At the other end of the line the Killing Ghost is waiting. Her skin is white as paper. There’s no color in her eyes. She smells of dead animals. She is waiting for Christine and Christine is brown and gold and orange and purple. She’s hot as the sun. She’s shining. “I have to go,” she says. C y c l e 3 ...

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