On the third bite of bread my tooth cracked hard and the pain was only secondary to the violence of the split. The second molar on the left succumbed. Only this second molar. I no longer had the third molar or the wisdom tooth, empty spaces, the teeth already removed and made blank years earlier in a white room (fluorescent) by an American dentist who did not listen with his gloved plastic fingers.

14.

In the glass apartment you made me two plates of pasta: la carbonara and aglio, olio, e peperoncino (with too much garlic). You forced me to eat them one right after the other. Your son watched as you watched me eat. It did not occur to me that I was eating alone.

I ate them both, one right after the other.

15.

I have never received a love letter, so I wrote one to myself. It is quite somber, brief. It’s not very kind, but it’s true. It ends: I valued you the first time. I don’t want to say more.

16.

I feared falling on my chin, a kidnapping, or slipping and hitting my temples, smoke inhalation. You were only afraid of flying or of falling.

I have flown many times over the Atlantic. While others watch movies, I follow the illustrated map. And the cars that can be seen making right turns outside the scratched windows, plus the lights, the homes, tiny homes; the people are there beneath. I chose the window seat. You preferred middle seats, aisles. We have flown many times over the Atlantic.

On a plane you brought along important items: stones, seashells, jewelry. Hard objects that might not disintegrate so easily. You explained your reasoning:

someone could find them in my pockets, and identify my remains. Relatives could come near the crash site, the place where I was lost. They could wait between briefings to be told how my body parts may be hard to locate, how there would only be fragments, little pieces of bone, teeth, or hard objects, stones, seashells, jewelry.

17.

Two teeth, numbers one and nineteen, were removed with local anesthesia. It was fast, but full of pressure. The surgeon held my head like a basketball (one hand on the left side, one in the middle) and his forearm lay on my temple; his chest was on my neck.

Cracking, pushing, pulling hard. When it was out, the pain was gone. The surgeon would not suture the wounds, so the gums were left wide and gaping. I ate carefully. My nails were painted red and my gums were left open.

18.

The grapefruit was never my favorite, but you ate it whole, so I ate it whole too. The sour juice followed us around.

19.