On Page Two Hundred Eighty-Six

Near the end of the book
(without giving anything away)
she stumbles in front of this sentence:

They would never have dropped such a bomb
(you know, the bomb)
on a white nation.

Suddenly her history
(textbooks, lectures, tales of necessity)
falls into shatters against the text.

Caravaggio, Hana, Kip, and the patient
(who requested his name not be used)
stop what they are doing and stare at her ignorance.

A breeze ruffles the pages.