Britta-chan

The street-level apartment, abandoned from wear and tornado last spring, tells us love stories in graffiti inscriptions. Close enough to the road that it leans looming over it, the complex slumps, unused, except by an eight year old boy; old enough to have been told not to and young enough to not understand. He has hands that stutter— hesitate— because he folds paper like he seals envelopes: with purpose. He has a mind that isn't reluctant; why wish upon a star when the beings that can grant wishes are in the spaces between constellations? Together, his head and hands craft paper cranes. Between knotted levels of rope, cranes