We Make Mud

The Moon is Girl’s Heart

We see Girl. We see Girl standing knee deep in the river washing her girl hair in the river’s muddy water. Girl, we holler up. Hey Girl, we say, and we run ourselves up to get us brothers a closer look. Girl turns back around toward the sound of our boy voices, but she does not stop her in-the-river washing. Rivers river down from Girl’s rivery hair, rivering down the rivery banks of her rivery girl body. Boys, she says to us brothers, and she drops down on her girl knees. Come close, Girl says to this. Listen. When Girl tells us brothers to come close, come listen, us brothers, we always listen. Hear it, Girl says again, and she lifts us brothers up, and holds us brothers up against her heart. We listen, and we listen some more, but there is no sound, there is no beating there, for us brothers to hear. So we lean our ears back away from that soundless place on Girl’s body where Girl’s heart is supposed to be beating. It used to be there — that beating sound — beating beneath that place on Girl’s body, there where there is a freckle right there shaped like a star. Dig here is what our ears used to always hear the heartbeat of Girl whispering to us. But now, us brothers, we don’t say a thing to Girl about the quiet we now hear. What we do is we do this: we reach inside with our dirty boy hands, into Girl’s made-out-of-mud body, and we take hold of Girl’s heart. Girl’s heart, we know, because we made it so, it is made out of mud. But the mud, we see now, it has turned to dirt. Girl’s heart, it is so hard it is hard for us brothers to touch it. But still, us brothers, we touch it. We touch it, and then we do more than touch it. We take it, Girl’s heart, into our dirty boy hands. And what we do then is we pull, and we pull. We give Girl’s heart our best boy tug. Yes, Girl’s heart, when we tug it like this, it pops loose like a tooth with no roots to it. Girl doesn’t wince, or flinch with her girl body, or make with her girl mouth the sound of a sister crying out. Good, Sister, we say to Girl. What we do then is we take Girl’s heart and we lower it down into the river. We hold it down underneath the river until the dirt of it turns back to mud. When Girl’s heart is back to being mud, we take it, Girl’s heart, and we shape it, with our hands, so that it is shaped into the shape of a heart. But no, that’s not right, Brother points this out. Girl’s heart, it was never shaped the shape of a heart. Brother is right. Good, Brother, I say. And so, like this, us brothers, we make it right. We take our boy hands, we take Girl’s heart into our muddy brother hands, and we make it into the moon. The moon, it is Girl’s heart, I say. I say this to the sky. Then Girl tells us brothers take a look inside. We do. We look inside. Inside of Girl’s moon heart, inside her made-out-of-mud heart, there are two sisters. One for each of us brothers. Us brothers, we look and we look and then we dive inside. When we do, this moon, it shatters into a billion pieces. Each broken piece becomes a star.