Читать книгу Popular Longing - Natalie Shapero - Страница 11

Lying Is Getting

to me. The high-ups instructed me not to tell their dad

about the particulates—the last

time he caught them polluting, he made them sit

themselves down right there and eat a whole smokestack.

I keep nodding when the city insists I stick

with the story of accidents—she was cleaning

her gun, he was cleaning the recessed

sign on the front of the passenger train, they were holding

hands and had a whole plan to clean

the concrete twenty-two stories below the ledge

of the mixed-use downtown

tower. To really make it shine. The party line

is getting me good. I keep turning

my face to the flashbulb in an effort to seem like someone

with no secrets, and now when I see other people

framed and beaming, I want to know what they’re keeping

in. All those holiday moments, tacked

to the fridge or strung up with wire and eyelets. All that sin—