WAIT FOR THE DOOR TO OPEN
She lost faith and spent the whole day looking for it, thinking if she could just remember what made all this so special, then the pain in her belly and that engine part that makes everything go and the strings of intention that lift the puppet limbs into dance, into battle, onto glory, all that pain in her working parts would recede and take its poison with it. Then she could open her mouth to the clear spring waters again, her attention would fall like a blessing on the curves and edges of things, collecting in pools that reflect the sky. The man at the register took her money. The way he folded her coupons into her receipt said: Stop fighting, listen carefully, wait for the door to open, then step through it.