meeting raze your parents without you, in a basement that doesn't belong to them. your mother asks if i've noticed a change in your lower lip. she stands to face the wall at our backs. re-enacts a scene from your childhood. i talk with your father about how confusing phones can be. he doesn't say much, but every word is freighted with gratitude for the life he still has. he loves you more than he can say. something else we have in common. i hide two photographs you've never seen beneath my coat and paint slow circles on his chest with one hand. "bless you, sweet warm-blooded creature," he says, his smile a tired salvo fired into the firmament. 230303 what's it to you? who go blather from