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at her seventeenth birthday party,

they rented Xanadu,

and experienced the nostalgia of blue and pink pastel skates,

and broken gravel driveways,

and strawberry kool-aid dribbled onto art frocks

she bakes a cake with her eyes closed and her hands tied behind her back

she can crack the eggs carefully: tapping the white shell on the side of a silver mixing bowl,

tapping carefully in the center,

splitting the egg apart and letting the yolk cascade down the side of the dish

one day,

she took some oil crayons and slices of tracing paper, thin and translucent

to the cemetery where the statue of Robert E. Lee had been placed in 1864.

she carefully rubbed over the epitaphs of women who had died too young

and children who had been born too early,

and the epitaphs of men,

she left alone.

silent among weeds and trampled pine needles that had collected in soft layers.

as cold as graves.

as cold as ghosts.

sometimes she drives with her eyes closed,

pretending to be blind like her great-grandmother who lives

in a small suburb of nashville and wears black gloves trimmed in tiny flower-patterned lace

and shiny leather boots that click like horse hooves when she walks,

three clicks,

one for each shoe

and one for her roving walking stick.

her great-grandmother stole gum-drops from the local supermarket once,

in the great wooden barrels displaying various candies near the produce section,

her great-grandmother dipped the plastic scoop into the mound of candy as she held a plastic bag open

but the candy went neatly into the brown leather handbag,

at first,

she thought the old woman had made a mistake,

that she had missed the plastic bag all together due to her lack of sight,

but the old woman just grabbed the plastic bag, balled it tight in her fist and placed it in a trash bin a few feet away.

and then clicked down the aisle muttering about how the times were changing

but not fast enough.

people ask about her boyfriend,

and she says,

what boyfriend?

and then their eyes change as if she has disappeared from their recognition.

and so sometimes,

she lies.

she tells him that he is a dairy farmer in wisconsin,

and that he has broad shoulders,

five o�clock shadow,

and hands that are content to hold her

but do not grasp,

afraid to let go.