urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:columbidae we are instruments, we are copyrighted we are instruments, we are copyrighted 2005-10-21T18:41:50Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:columbidae:4146 2005-10-21T18:41:50Z 2005-10-21T18:41:50Z 9.<br /><br />As a rule, my sister didn't care for social gatherings,<br />though when she went she carried away<br />a palpable feeling of euphoria. This wasn't,<br />however, the euphoria of "a good time,"<br />but the accomplishment of someone who'd managed<br />to remain <i>incognito</i> under very exacting scrutiny.<br />When we were alone, this shyness proved self-<br />wounding, and I felt at times that many of the secrets<br />she confessed to me were things she actually<br />wished she'd regretted, more than things she suffered<br />for having done. In these and other respects,<br />she reminded me of those blue translucent birds<br />("so the hawks can't see them against the sky")<br />Marlon Brando describes in <i>The Fugitive Kind</i>.<br />Those legless birds that "don't belong no place<br />at all," and so stay on the wing until they die.<br /><br />-Sherod Santos, <i>Elegy For My Sister</i>