The same morning I press my shorn chest flat against an x-ray machine, my sister pushes from her body a baby girl. Praise God, whose hand passes over itself like river currents as it gives and takes, pulls one film from the whirring machine while pushing in a new, unprinted slide. Praise God for this fearful doubling, over which I will sometimes weep and curse. Little breathing at the still whole breast of my sister, little gold seed of death awakening as the first sun touches its tendrils.
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