Cuban babies up well past eleven, sucking on bottles and music
Letting a small Italian woman with milky-blue eyes retell my life
The tarot cards speak of swords and fools and death. I understand more than I let on. Maybe that could be a superpower
My sister tells me in that old boat pub to not worry about giving my heart away. She says Jill you give the same amount of yourself to a stranger as you would to someone you love. She says don’t go changing but always remember that 4 quarters are better than 100 pennies in your purse
We greet the frayed parts of ourselves when we gather
My sister says it best that we’re our most us and I say it sideways when I say I feel too seen
We all know how to get there and we all know the way home
I stuff it in my pocket and let the nonna’s words fall into the seaweed
Understanding that I can write my own cards and still heed advice
We swap the love chore of collecting coffees in the morning and we share toothpaste, showers, birthday candles and cigars. We say we feel him everywhere but it means something different. My brother misses building forts in the woods. My mother misses being needed so borderline-badly. My sister and I miss knowing we had more time to right a path
I watch humanity crawl the boardwalk at sunset and we all know the words to Bohemian Rhapsody in that way that only happens in the folds
Quiet superpowers with only the good quarters in my purse.
Jillian Prendergast. Writer. 