I Want Your Body is a bronze cast of a pin that belonged to my mother’s father. The original hung on the wall over his desk. A novelty joke from the ’70s, it was benignly sexy and a little silly. I found it in the charred remains of his home.

Our bodies generate our stories. When the body is lost, so is the narrative. As Derrida wrote in The Gift of Death, “We are given over to ab-solute solitude. No one can speak with us and no one can speak for us; we must take it upon ourselves, each of us must take it upon himself.” There is no hope for reconciliation, no future, the story can’t be elaborated upon anymore. The story can only be a past story, and reinterpretation moving forward only changes the living side of the equation. Between the dead and the living, one side is closed forever.