Sparrow

My sister said she was carrying a bird inside her, a bird which would soon be drinking water out of her navel. I wasn’t supposed to say anything about it. To anyone. ‘I am a cage,’ said my sister. ‘Inside me I keep secrets, inside me I keep a bird.’ And she laughed and I laughed, too. We laughed until we no longer remembered what we were laughing about. ‘His name is Sparrow,’ she said one day. ‘He’s only little now, as tiny as a seed — but he’ll grow and grow, you’ll see. And then I’ll set him free.’ She placed her hand on her stomach and her mouth curved upwards, as if she were smiling at another world in the mirror.