How to Build an American Home

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            When the father reminds her to exercise the eyes by staring at the
horizon, it is a lesson in distance.
                  As if he knew how the distance to an object is felt as
                                                                               the distance to one’s body.

Inside the house of his birth years, she unlocked
the door, and amidst the dust of translucent curtain, wooden washboard,
overgrown courtyard, cabinet of forgotten vanquishings, she saw all she could
                have was the nearness of the faraway hour between stale walls.