Ask Of Me Whatever You Desire

And his head was brought on a trencher
and given to the little girl,
and she brought it to her mother.*

What isn't here is the look in my parents' faces when they realized they had walked into a birthday party, with their children, right after Sunday service, from a church whose pastors teach their sheep not to celebrate birthdays. The photographer, my aunt, was the architect of the revolt in a family halved by believers, led by my grandmother, and nonbelievers, led by my grandfather. Really, it was the birthday of a cousin, older than me by a few years, one of us, the son of believers. But since my sister and I have never celebrated our birthdays, this day was ours as well, they said. I have no memory of this. But here, I see my tiny hands holding my sister's hat underneath mine, ignorant of what hats are for, or perhaps unconsciously saving my sister's hand from such an unholy object, or perhaps unconsciously holding onto this one and only day.

* The title is drawn from Mark 6:22, and the opening verse from Matthew 14:11, both from David Bentley Hart's translation of the New Testament.