Coming from a place where we meandered mornings and met quail, scrub jay, mockingbird, i knew coyote, like everyone else, i knew 
cactus, knew tumbleweed, lichen on the rocks and pill bugs beneath, rattlers sometimes, the soft smell of sage and the ferment of cactus pear. coming from this place, from a place where grass might grow greener on the hillside in winter than in any yard, where, the whole rest of the year, everything i loved, chaparral pea, bottle brush tree, jacaranda, mariposa, pinyon and desert oak, the kumquat in the back garden and wisteria vining the porch, the dry grass whispering long after the last rains, raccoons in and out of the hills, trash hurled by the hottest wind, the dry grass tall now and golden, lawn chairs, 
eucalyptus, everything, in a place we knew, every thing, we knew, little and large and mine and ours, except horror, all of it, everything could flame up that quickly, could flare and be gone.

One of the first experiments we give children teaches the three states of water: liquid, vapor, and ICE at the border storing children in hieleras, short-term detention facilities known as iceboxes because it’s so cold you can see your breath as it transforms from vapor into liquid and ice.

Why? a child on the floor asks.

Our bodies are mostly water and the water inside them is the same temperature as our bodies, around 98.6 degrees, but the icebox is much colder so when a child exhales a warm, saturated breath, it becomes dew, and when it is cooled even further, condenses to minuscule droplets of liquid and ice, and this, child, is the cloud we see.

Some children are given two apples a day, which helps them keep time.

When it comes to the human bones, it’s hard not to admire the rib cage that holds my heart like it’s an animal.

Still, if I had to name just one favorite, I’m torn between the hip and the jaw.

Imagine the invention of the wheel and then the waterwheel, the color wheel, the spinning wheel for turning threads into blankets.

Next lesson: there are five basic needs—water, air, food, sleep, shelter.

I admire the moving parts.

The evolution of the hip decoupled walking from breathing so we can run at sunset toward each other or away from fire.

The bones of the hips are winged; if I flashed a picture quickly before you like pornography, you might mistake it for an emperor moth, which is one way to enter the world, headfirst through a body attracted to light.

The history of hips frees the hands for holding a baby, rocking a baby, holding your child’s eyes near your eyes at the distance the eyes first can see.

The jawbone gives us each a face.

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,

“It shows a mighty lot of cheek

To study chemistry and Greek

When Mister Charlie needs a hand

To hoe the cotton on his land,

And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,

Why stick your nose inside a book?”

“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.,

“If I should have the drive to seek

Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,

I’ll do it. Charles and Miss can look

Another place for hand or cook.

Some men rejoice in skill of hand,

And some in cultivating land,

But there are others who maintain

The right to cultivate the brain.”

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.,

“That all you folks have missed the boat

Who shout about the right to vote,

And spend vain days and sleepless nights

In uproar over civil rights.

Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,

But work, and save, and buy a house.”

“I don’t agree,” said W.E.B.,

“For what can property avail

If dignity and justice fail.

Unless you help to make the laws,

They’ll steal your house with trumped-up clause.

A rope’s as tight, a fire as hot,

No matter how much cash you’ve got.

Speak soft, and try your little plan,

But as for me, I’ll be a man.”

“It seems to me,” said Booker T.—

“I don’t agree,”

Said W.E.B.