excised ovenbird In Spain, we start over. Without passports or birth certificates we are no one. We live in a tiny home by the sea, terra cotta roof tiles catch the rain, a flagstone path leads down to the water’s edge where waves smooth limestone into abstract sculptures. My bed is a straw stuffed mattress on a rickety frame. The windows have no panes and the night comes in, cool and thick and thirsty. I start over in a place I’ve never been with the people who brought me to this world because they believed the beauty would be worth the pain, though I’m not sure I agree with their assessment. I can look out to the sun coming over the hills. I can look out into the bedroom of strangers who are living a life I will never know. When I wake I tell him my dream and he says, “Where was I in all of this? Where were the children?” I say, “You weren’t there.” And he looks at me like a hunted thing. As if I erased them all. As if I might, in fact, be harbouring such powers. 260330 what's it to you? who go blather from