Ninety dead mallards in a pond in the village where my mother was born. Testing will take several weeks. I’ve been wondering how to sleep, how to say hello to my neighbors. Someone should make dinner. My friend’s eight-year-old student has started carrying his birth certificate in his math folder. Just in case, he tells her. We switch out the lamps to avoid blue light. On Friday, the planets aligned. That is, they looked aligned from here, but the scientists have all gone home. The doctors’ cabinets are empty. Poster board and black markers. The chatbot says it is time to worry. Last summer, a drake and a hen nested in the peonies along the garage, in a cloud of weeds and down, a plastic shopping bag. Six shells smashed one morning. No one knows if they left, or the fox came. Actually, we do. At night, my beloved moves my pillow closer to his corner of the bed while I’m in the other room brushing my teeth. As close as possible, he says. I want to feel like I’m falling off the edge.
 

—Callista Buchen

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