Moon Blossom

Paper Zoo

Pain echoes. It becomes a part of everyone it touches, sometimes even things. I hold my daughter, her face craning up to me with a baby’s curiosity of strangers. Her world is so small, such a tight registry of memory that I am not a part of. Babies don’t remember moments, but they do remember—not words or actions, but everything underneath. She won’t remember my unshaven face, but maybe the things it veils. Will she remember bright orange? The particular hue that only appears here, in this cold room?