Dandelion seeds turning into birds on the abdomen

They kept me at the crossing at Ruse until the bus had gone on without me, so I have had two nights and a good deal of time to think about the field behind Nana's house. You remember how the dandelion clocks went to nothing when we blew on them, and how Papa said every seed that left the stalk was a small promise that somebody would plant it somewhere else. I used to think he was making it up. Yesterday a customs officer with a chipped tooth held my passport up to the window, looked at the photograph, then at me, and asked where I meant to put down roots. I laughed so hard he made me wait again.

The clerk who finally stamped my papers was kind in the way tired men are kind. He said the border was just a line of paint and a row of poles, and that the birds did not need papers to cross it. I did not tell him I have started to believe him. On the far side there is a café where the coffee tastes of burnt bread, and a room above a bakery with a window that opens onto a lime tree full of starlings. Every evening they lift off together, all at once, and spill across the sky like something let go of.

I am writing this on the back of the form they gave me, so forgive the cramped hand. I will post it from the first town that has a box. Keep the old stalk in the garden for me. When I am settled I will send you a seed, and you will know it has arrived when something small and dark lifts off your windowsill and goes looking for a sky.

Love, Vera