I miss the last plane out.

I miss the cranes to wish on. Sadako folds one thousand and four hundred pink and yellow paper cuts. The blood folds up in ruts. She is crumpled by an atom bomb disease. Sadako dies before Halloween.

I miss the trip to the gas station. Mom, fringed by pork rinds, diagnosed the end. The doe’s eyes, blinking slowly. Sputtering toward sleep.

I miss the emergency room. Smells rubbed out by iodine.

I miss the coffee, cooling by the Xs of flowers tossed, cold by the time dirt is pooling.

I miss the sermons. The healing prophets. The line of my bowed spine sways to the glancing blows of disco. Far away, hands clasp in prayer.

I miss my walk down the aisle. A veil hovers over my shoulders. Faces press up against faces. And rice falls like dandruff. No one has given me away.

I miss the sound of him knocking. When I wake up, I am on the couch in the living room hemmed in by plastic corners and shored up pennies. Daddy was knocking at the patio door. The glass was colored silver by smog. The knocks were shaking. Daddy was knocking. The knocks were asking. The quiet knocks. On slivered glass.

I miss lasts.

I miss my brother’s 18th birthday. He spends it kneeling in pews and tossing crosses of stems and swallowing Christfuls of dirt. No one falls into the pit. Oh, adult. Fresh mint.