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40 First Halloween You have such beautiful hands, a stranger on a bus said. Slender long sinew, veins and porcelain, knuckles round as moons. They are my father’s hands, like a nobleman’s in autumn, oyster in their smooth, helium in their rise. Mine bloomed with license to think, his mopped floors, mixed mahjong tiles. In the evenings, chipped tiles slapped, bracked, bumped. Outside, children split streets like an avalanche. My father splayed under the table, curtains drawn, eyeballs swelled to moons. I remember the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory— we both win if we cooperate. But say I want to be ornate, a well-dressed disaster. Say he prefers khakis and a pressed shirt. Say I am the cock that fiercely fights until the end. Say he is the turtle tucked under its bud, shameful to flower. None of this matters—my hands, sleek and doomed under a sky, pinned to some continent. ...

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