We watched from the lawn — through blinds, through the leaves. The Lisbon house breathed like a held-back grief. Cecilia first — a white fact, small and steep. Then the street went quiet, too deep to keep. The Virgin Suicides — you can never understand why. We were only boys, on the wrong side of the glass. You can never understand why. Their light stayed in the neighborhood, in the curtains, in the dust. Lux on the roof, smoke in the dusk; the sisters behind their doors, inside the parish hush. We kept what we could — a comb, a note, a lock of hair — as if touch might translate the dark into air. The Virgin Suicides — you can never understand why. We were only boys, on the wrong side of the glass. You can never understand why. Their light stayed in the neighborhood, in the curtains, in the dust. “What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.” But they knew. And we kept watching. The Virgin Suicides — you can never understand why. Their light stayed in the neighborhood, like a line of stars in the sky. The Lisbon girls — a house full of vanishing.
