We bend and no one sees us. Voices travel down river. We’re humbler at this hour,
collectors: at our feet, the mammoth vertebrae of a lost age. Far away,
in a Brooklyn apartment, Grandfather begins his unbecoming. He rides his bed through cataracts
and record-breaking heat waves, keeps the windows closed. It’s summertime, and nobody cares
about the old. My mother packs books and china sets in boxes, leans through the sparkling dust
to whisper to him, It’s time. At home, she puts his house keys with the others, in the kitchen drawer.
Amelia Klein was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently working towards her doctorate in English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University. Her work has been published in Tin House Magazine. Amelia lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
