She told me I was born at 4 PM, Friday, an autumn afternoon.
She showed me a booklet, neatly kept, but the plastic wrap was already yellowed.
She pointed at the hospital where I was born, every time we drove past the east side of the city.
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I have known many autumn afternoons at 4 PM:
tiny yellow flowers dotting the stone bricks of ancient walls and ancient paths;
tiny raindrops shrouding the stone animals and stone tombs of the fallen kingdoms;
tiny sesame seeds sprinkling down from the saline pastries on a sunlit ceramic plate.
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But that autumn afternoon, Friday, at 4 PM, I have never remembered.
Neither had I known the tiny yellow flowers, tiny raindrops, tiny sesame seeds by then…
Was it a sunny day or had it been raining for a week?
Or it could be both, since it was before me, the logic, the reality,
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Hundreds of thousands of women, hospitals, empty booklets…
Yet to be picked,
Yet to connect.