About a year ago, I was at a book launch in Dublin and a card caught my eye as I was leaving. I had my newborn in the pram with me (I figured she wasn’t sleeping anyway, so she might as well come to a book launch). It was coming up to Mother’s Day, and
The moment he throws the first jab, he’s conscious of a songbird out in the yard. As he feels the jarring impact and at least one of his knuckles coming apart, he imagines the bird trawling the very latticework of spring for a mate, indifferent to this uncoupling of some other kind of couple. With
Elani has grown up in violence. It surrounds her. It inhabits her father and lives on every face in her neighborhood. But Elani has learned a trick: watching people’s hands. If she carefully observes how someone carries a mug or a phone or a bottle, she can spot that subtle difference between holding and wielding.
