“It was a good day in the quarry,” my father said, every day at dusk, over and over again, sun setting behind the red mountains of meat, the thick smell of viscera and coin on my tongue, in my throat.

Later, the meat cooks in the pan. I stare down into the blood of it, knowing another man cleaved it up out of the land. I move my mouth against the meat. I cannot taste him there anymore, my father.

NOBODY TOUCHES MY BODY EXCEPT THE strong wind now, which tilts me in various directions depending on the day: north, south, east, west. I stop sleeping. When I glance at the trees outside, I cannot help but count the knots, those unblinking eyes in the brown bark.

THESE ARE DAYS OF NOTHING: SLOW motion, under water, distant from other bodies, other thoughts, other humans. I stop wanting and become very still. I want to cut my life off at the legs.

MY MOTHER COMES TO VISIT FOR TWO nights.

Before she arrives, I clean the house: I scrub the floors, the counters, I clean the bathroom tile and porcelain. I run lemons over the walls.

“Look at you,” my mother says, smoking.

When I hug her in greeting, her knot presses against me briefly. A strange disgust rises up in me, a desire to push her away. In horror, I shake the feeling from me.

“Look at you!” I respond.

That night, we eat a simple dinner: Meat, vegetables, red wine. Her face has aged beyond measure, her hair gray, her wrinkles deep.

I reach over and touch her hand. She squeezes mine and we both let out small awkward laughs. It is easier, at times, to touch her than to know her.

THAT NIGHT, WE SHARE MY BED, MY mother and me. It takes on the air of a slumber party, both of us in our pajamas.

Before I turn the lights off, she rolls over to me. She pulls me into a long hug. Her knot presses against me and I warp around the shape of her.

“I do love you,” she says.

“Love you too, Mom,” I say.

I mean it from a place deep within my ribs. If she notices the wetness from my eyes on her nightgown, she does not mention it.

AFTER MY MOTHER LEAVES, I CANNOT stop crying. For days, my eyes well up without warning, a knowledge between my ribs: I have seen her for the last time.

◆Three days after death, the enzymes that were present in the last consumed meal begin to eat the body

◆Hearing is the last sense to go when we die

◆Certain species of jellyfish are immortal

◆Every 40 seconds, a human commits suicide

SOME DAYS I WANT A PAIN GREATER THAN my own grief: the teeth pulled from my mouth, one by one, twenty small labors, my rotted children on a silver tray, my tiny cavities.