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14 A LightWill Come OnWithoutWarning She says let’s talk now about old flames. Let’s measure them up. In a single breath, her gray, smoke-filled breath, a past life, leans forward, as reflection. There are the eyes of my former husband, ripe with bad omens. Somewhere he walks with his head down and my name tattooed in blue letters on his chest. This was love at twenty-one, solid as a brick wall. I feel now like a ghost singing. Listen. We are sitting here, two women, but I know what sometimes happens over coffee, between hours of half-serious talk and dreaming. We might change our names, our skins. We might decide suddenly that life here could be better there, in a small town up north. But she’s older, knows how to stay where it all began. I know I want a beer and my own corner of a crowded dance hall. But the waiter won’t come anytime soon. He has strong bones in his face and many friends. I have a son 15 waiting at home, sleeping soundly with the name I gave him while a late snow pressed the glass of the window, gathering quietly like faces. Outside the sidewalks shine with rain. I wait for her voice to place my body in its own light. ...

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