by J.M.C. Kane<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What\u2019s left on the maple is everything that isn\u2019t sound\u2014
\nthe brittle cast of seventeen years arriving at once,
\nunzipped along the spine like a childhood outgrown
\nstanding up.<\/p>\n
My sons used to pin them to their shirts like medals,
\nhonors for outliving dirt.
\nWe learned to tell noise from choir\u2014
\nhow a million throats can hold one note.<\/p>\n
At dusk the yard is a museum of used names:
\nhollow, exact, faithful to the last knuckle.
\nThe living climb higher, ecstatic and unbeautiful.
\nThe shells remain, perfect at remembering.<\/p>\n
I pocket one\u2014light as the thought before it\u2019s a word\u2014
\nand whisper into it what I\u2019m not brave enough
\nto say to the living:
\ncome back if you can. If you can\u2019t,
\nteach me how to leave the shape behind.
\n <\/p>\n
J.M.C. Kane is the author of Quiet Brilliance: What Employers Miss About Neurodivergent Talent and How to See It<\/em> (CollectiveInk U.K.), a celebrated nonfiction work on cognitive patterning and inclusion in the workplace. Disabled, he writes from this learned experience as an ASD-1. His prose work has been published in more than a dozen literary journals and magazines. Kane admires compression the way some people admire tightrope walkers: from a safe distance, practicing only at home. He lives in New Orleans with his family in a house filled with paintings, dogs, and stories that unfold slowly.<\/p>\n
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