They told me to take it.
Shhh…it’ll make it better.
Just two a day would make me normal again.
I drink them all.
Two will make it better, all will make it perfect.
I feel nothing now. Everything is clear. Nothing hurts.
Emotionless I lay back and wrap my legs around death.
“It’s okay if we play,” I tell him.
“I know now that nothing really matters.”
Just put your lips together and blow.
I didn’t know my grandmother.
But one afternoon I stood on the steps whistling for the dogs and the hair on my mother’s body stood up.
Whistling into the afternoon.
Whistling for the dogs.
Whistling just like my grandmother.
Whistling like a dead woman I’d never met.
“It’s just you.”
“Yeah it’s just me.”
“My mother used to whistle just like that.”
Every time I whistle for the dogs my mother’s blood runs cold.
The Secret Life of Pandas 