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Kintsukuroi (iii)

C. Fausto Cabrera


Oh, how the broken chase what glitters. If Kintsukuroi means ‘golden repair’

in Japanese, a process of repairing broken pottery with gold—a restoration

that

puts a proud history of survival on display in dignity; then why do we hate 

                                                                                                                                                each

other for falling apart, yet won’t look away when we pass a crash site? I

  didn’t


grow up around the movie tropes of zombie crackheads: they were all

 people

with jokes & personality, issues & pain; but even the dirtbags were

   respectful.

A dude I’d been dealing with for a while offered me a blue pebble of a gem,

I turned it over in my palm & asked Is it real? sounding like a kid treasure 

                                                                                                                                             hunting


at a yard sale. Light bounced off its facets, & for a moment life made sense

for some reason I couldn’t explain. I shook it in my hand like loaded dice & 

                                                                                                                                               smiled,

& gave him my last $50 worth of crack for the costume jewel. It was enough

       to retire on.

& maybe, in the end—all it’s about is what the cup holds & that we decided to 

                                                                                                                                               keep it.        

C. Fausto Cabrera is a multi-genre artist & writer currently incarcerated since 2003. His work has appeared in: The Colorado Review, The Antioch Review, Puerto del Sol, The Comstock Review, The American Literary Review, The Missouri Review, The Water-Stone Review, The California Quarterly, The Woodward Review (Pushcart nomination), & descant. His most recent project is a prose collaboration with photographer Alec Soth, The Parameters of Our Cage. He co-founded The Stillwater Writers Collective partnered with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop (MPWW) & has a profile through WeAreAllCriminals.org's Seen Project.

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