Armadillo has gone for a walk.
I never leave this house.
He says the armor is
weighing him down.
A walk will do him well.
He will be gone for exactly
one light year. His walks
are never longer than that.
I want to go back to when I was 14.
It was 1934 in Berlin and the streets
were bustling with traffic and it seemed
like everyone was in a hurry
to get somewhere, anywhere
except no one was really moving.
I was headed to the Cinema to watch
the latest film from Hollywood.
I was a scrawny girl with auburn hair
and my face had not caught up to my nose.
I combed my hair like Ginger Rogers.
My friends and I are headed inside
the dark smoky theatre where everyone
is taking a seat and standing up
and taking a seat and laughing
and then crying as if they were the ones in the film
until silence takes over with a hush.
Hush someone says and then another
and then another please hush please
be quiet, please please be quiet, please.
This is when Armadillo returns from
his walk which took exactly
one light year which to a human equals
exactly 15 minutes and 7 seconds.
Armadillo looks over to me and
I know what he wants
so I put away my 14 year old self
and go back to being the nun-like creature
he understands and offer to give his armor a rub.
I rub him down.
I rub him down with precision.
I use my own fingers in between
each groove between each crease.
I rub him down.
I rub him down
until the weight
of every single
moment in time
is released.
He says to me:
I was in Las Vegas in 1965.
I was sitting by the roulette table.
Mia Farrow blew my dice
