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History can't be rushed. We didn't have time to see the village, we didn't have time to see the house fall to build light out of mud, nor did we see time burning. The city is missing, and we've saved others, our backs turned. What happened is a different reality in everyone's mind, but the direction we took tells us the world doesn't end when we force air out of bones. Now we know the myth by the cup of coffee going cold, realize we were never told how to take the street parallel to our heart.

Thus chydand with her drerie destenye, Weiping, scho woik the nicht fra end to end; Bot all in vane; hir dule, hir cairfull cry, Micht not remeid, nor yit hir murning mend. Ane lipper lady rais, and till hir wend, And said, "Quhy spurnis thow aganis the wall, To sla thyself, and mend nathing at all? "Sen thy weiping dowbillis bot thy wo, I counsall the mak vertew of ane neid; To leir to clap thy clapper to and fro, And leir efter the law of lipper leid." Thair was na buit, bot furth with thame scho yeid, Fra place to place, quhill cauld and hounger sair Compellit hir to be ane rank beggair. That samin tyme of Troy the garnisoun, Quhilk had to chiftane worthie Troylus, Throw jeopardie of weir had strikken down Knichtis of Grece in number marvellous: With greit tryumphe and laude victorious Agane to Troy richt royallie they raid, The way quhair Cresseid with the lipper baid. Seing that companie, thai come all with ane stevin; Thay gaif ane cry, and schuik coppis gude speid; Said, "Worthie lordis, for Goddis lufe of hevin, To us lipper part of your almous deid." Than to thair cry nobill Troylus tuik heid, Having pietie, neir by the place can pas Quhair Cresseid sat, not witting quhat scho was. Than upon him scho kest up baith her ene, And with ane blenk it come into his thocht That he sumtime hir face befoir had sene; But scho was in sic plye he knew hir nocht; Yit than hir luik into his mynd it brocht The sweit visage and amorous blenking Of fair Cresseid, sumtyme his awin darling. Na wonder was, suppois in mynd that he Tuik hir figure sa sone, and lo! now quhy! The idole of ane thing in cace may be Sa deip imprentit in the fantasy, That it deludis the wittis outwardly, And sa appeiris in forme and lyke estait Within the mynd, as it was figurait. Ane spark of lufe than till his hart culd spring, And kendlit all his bodie in ane fyre, With hait fevir ane sweit and trimbling Him tuik, quhill he was reddie to expyre; To beir his scheild his breist began to tyre; Within ane quhyle he changit mony hew, And, nevertheles, not ane ane uther knew. For knichtlie pietie and memoriall Of fair Cresseid, ane gyrdill can he tak, Ane purs of gold, and mony gay jowall, And in the skirt of Cresseid doun can swak: Than raid away, and not ane word he spak, Pensive in hart, quhill he come to the toun, And for greit cair oft syis almaist fell doun. The lipper folk to Cresseid than can draw, To se the equall distributioun Of the almous; but quhan the gold they saw, Ilk ane to uther prevelie can roun, And said, "Yone lord hes mair affectioun, How ever it be, unto yone lazarous, Than to us all; we knaw be his almous." "Quhat lord is yone," (quod scho), "have ye na feill, Hes done to us so greit humanitie?" "Yes," (quod a lipper man), "I knaw him weill; Schir Troylus it is, gentill and fre." Quhen Cresseid understude that it was he, Stiffer than steill thair stert ane bitter stound Throwout hir hart, and fell doun to the ground. Quhen scho, ouircome with siching sair and sad, With many cairfull cry and cald "Ochane! Now is my breist with stormie stoundis stad, Wrappit in wo, ane wretch full will of wane:" Than swounit scho oft or scho culd refrane, And ever in hir swouning cryit scho thus: "O, fals Cresseid, and trew knicht Troylus! "Thy lufe, thy lawtie, and thy gentilnes I countit small in my prosperitie; Sa elevait I was in wantones, And clam upon the fickill quheill sa hie; All faith and lufe I promissit to the Was in the self fickill and frivolous: O, fals Cresseid, and trew knicht Troilus! "For lufe of me thow keipt gude continence, Honest and chaist in conversatioun; Of all wemen protectour and defence Thou was, and helpit thair opinioun: My mynd in fleschelie foull affectioun Was inclynit to lustis lecherous: Fy, fals Cresseid! O, trew knicht Troylus! "Lovers, be war, and tak gude heid about Quhome that ye lufe, for quhome ye suffer paine; I lat yow wit, thair is richt few thairout Quhome ye may traist to have trew lufe agane: Preif quhen ye will, your labour is in vaine; Thairfoir, I reid ye tak thame as ye find, For thay ar sad as widdercock in wind, "Becaus I knaw the greit unstabilnes, Brukkil as glas, into my self, I say, Traisting in uther als greit unfaithfulnes, Als unconstant, and als untrew of fay; Thocht sum be trew, I wait richt few are thay; Quha findis treuth, lat him his lady ruse: Nane but my self, as now, I will accuse." Quhen this was said, with paper scho sat doun, And on this maneir maid hir testament: "Heir I beteiche my corps and carioun With wormis and with taidis to be rent; My cop and clapper, and myne ornament, And all my gold, the lipper folk sall have, Quhen I am deid, to burie me in grave. "This royall ring, set with this rubie reid, Quhilk Troylus in drowrie to me send, To him agane I leif it quhan I am deid, To mak my cairfull deid unto him kend: Thus I conclude schortlie, and mak ane end; My spreit I leif to Diane, quhair scho dwellis, To walk with hir in waist woddis and wellis. "O, Diomeid! thow hes baith broche and belt Quhilk Troylus gave me in takning Of his trew lufe,"—and with that word scho swelt; And sone ane lipper man tuik of the ring, Syne buryit hir withouttin tarying: To Troylus furthwith the ring he bair, And of Cresseid the deith he can declair. Quhen he had hard hir greit infirmitie, Hir legacie and lamentatioun, And how scho endit in sic povertie, He swelt for wo, and fell doun in ane swoun; For greit sorrow his hart to birst was boun: Siching full sadlie, said, "I can no moir; Scho was untrew, and wo is me thairfoir!" Sum said he maid ane tomb of merbell gray, And wrait hir name and superscriptioun, And laid it on hir grave, quhair that scho lay, In goldin letteris, conteining this ressoun: "Lo, fair ladyis, Cresseid of Troyis toun, Sumtyme countit the flour of womanheid, Under this stane, late lipper, lyis deid!" Now, worthie wemen, in this ballet schort, Made for your worschip and instructioun, Of cheritie I monische and exhort, Ming not your lufe with fals deceptioun; Beir in your mynd this schort conclusioun Of fair Cresseid, as I have said befoir: Sen scho is deid, I speik of hir no moir.

Beholde, o man! lyft up thyn eye and see What mortall peyne I suffre for thi trespace. With pietous voys I crye and sey to the: Beholde my woundes, behold my blody face, Beholde the rebukes that do me so manace, Beholde my enemyes that do me so despice, And how that I, to reforme the to grace, Was like a lambe offred in sacryfice. ... And geyn thi pryde behold my gret mekenesse; Geyn thyn envie behold my charité; Geyn thi leccherye behold my chast clennesse; Geyn thi covetyse behold my poverté. Atweene too thevys nayled to a tree, Rayled with reed blood, they lyst me so desguyse, Behold, O man! all this I did for the, Meke as a lambe offred in sacryfice. Behold my love, and gyf me thyn ageyn; Behold, I deyde thy raunsom for to paye. Se howe myn herte is open brode and pleyn, Thy gostly enemyes onely to affraye. An hardere batayle no man myght assaye, Of all tryumphes the grettest hye empryse. Wher-for, O man! no lenger to dismaye, I gaf for the my blood in sacryfice. Turne home ageyn, thy synne do forsake. Behold and se yf ought be left behynde, How I to mercy am redy the to take. Gyf me thyn herte and be no more unkynde; Thy love and myn, togedyr do hem bynde, And late hem never departe in any wyse. Whan thou were lost, thy sowle ageyn to fynde, My blod I offred for the in sacryfice. Emprente thes thynges in thyn inward thought, And grave hem depe in thy remembraunce; Thynke on hem, and forgete hem nowght. Al this I suffred to do the allegeaunce, And with my seyntes to yeve the suffisaunce, In the hevenly court for the I do devyse A place eternall, a place of all plesaunce; For which my blood I gaf in sacryfice. And more my mercy to putte att a preef, To every synnere that non ne shal it mysse, Remembre how I gaf mercy to the theef Which hadde so longe trespaced and doon amys; Went he not frely with me to paradise? Have this in mende, how it is my guyse All repentaunt to bryng hem to my blysse, For whom my blood I gaf in sacryfice. Tarye no lenger toward thyn herytage; Hast on thy weye and be of ryght good chere. Go eche day onward on thy pylgrymage; Thynke howe short tyme thou hast abyden here. Thy place is bygged above the sterres clere,— Noon erthly palys wrought in so statly wyse. Kome on, my frend, my brother most entere! For the I offered my blood in sacryfice!

from Book I, Introduction Man’s Reason is in such deep insolvency to sense, that tho’ she guide his highest flight heav’nward, and teach him dignity morals manners and human comfort, she can delicatly and dangerously bedizen the rioting joys that fringe the sad pathways of Hell. Not without alliance of the animal senses hath she any miracle: Lov’st thou in the blithe hour of April dawns—nay marvelest thou not—to hear the ravishing music that the small birdës make in garden or woodland, rapturously heralding the break of day; when the first lark on high hath warn’d the vigilant robin already of the sun’s approach, and he on slender pipe calleth the nesting tribes to awake and fill and thrill their myriad-warbling throats praising life’s God, untill the blisful revel grow in wild profusion unfeign’d to such a hymn as man hath never in temple or grove pour’d to the Lord of heav’n? Hast thou then thought that all this ravishing music, that stirreth so thy heart, making thee dream of things illimitable unsearchable and of heavenly import, is but a light disturbance of the atoms of air, whose jostling ripples, gather’d within the ear, are tuned to resonant scale, and thence by the enthron’d mind received on the spiral stairway of her audience chamber as heralds of high spiritual significance? and that without thine ear, sound would hav no report. Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for thee any better melody in the April woods at dawn than what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awake o’night in his comfortless attic, might perchance be aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch? Now since the thoughtless birds not only act and enjoy this music, but to their offspring teach it with care, handing on those small folk-songs from father to son in such faithful tradition that they are familiar unchanging to the changeful generations of men— and year by year, listening to himself the nightingale as amorous of his art as of his brooding mate practiseth every phrase of his espousal lay, and still provoketh envy of the lesser songsters with the same notes that woke poetic eloquence alike in Sophocles and the sick heart of Keats— see then how deeply seated is the urgence whereto Bach and Mozart obey’d, or those other minstrels who pioneer’d for us on the marches of heav’n and paid no heed to wars that swept the world around, nor in their homes wer more troubled by cannon-roar than late the small birds wer, that nested and carol’d upon the devastated battlefields of France. Birds are of all animals the nearest to men for that they take delight in both music and dance, and gracefully schooling leisure to enliven life wer the earlier artists: moreover in their airy flight (which in its swiftness symboleth man’s soaring thought) they hav no rival but man, and easily surpass in their free voyaging his most desperate daring, altho’ he hath fed and sped his ocean-ships with fire; and now, disturbing me as I write, I hear on high his roaring airplanes, and idly raising my head see them there; like a migratory flock of birds that rustle southward from the cold fall of the year in order’d phalanx—so the thin-rankt squadrons ply, til sound and sight failing me they are lost in the clouds. ..... Time eateth away at many an old delusion, yet with civilization delusions make head; the thicket of the people wil take furtiv fire from irresponsible catchwords of live ideas, sudden as a gorse-bush from the smouldering end of any loiterer’s match-splint, which, unless trodden out afore it spredd, or quell’d with wieldy threshing-rods wil burn ten years of planting with all last year’s ricks and blacken a countryside. ’Tis like enough that men ignorant of fire and poison should be precondemn’d to sudden deaths and burnings, but ’tis mightily to the reproach of Reason that she cannot save nor guide the herd; that minds who else wer fit to rule must win to power by flattery and pretence, and so by spiritual dishonesty in their flurried reign confirm the disrepute of all authority— but only in sackcloth can the Muse speak of such things. from Book II. Selfhood The Spartan General Brasidas, the strenuous man, who earn’d historic favour from his conquer’d foe, once caught a mouse foraging in his messbasket among the figs, but when it bit him let it go, praising its show of fight in words that Plutarch judged worth treasuring; and since I redd the story at school unto this hour I hav never thought of Brasidas and cannot hear his name, but that I straightway see a table and an arm’d man smiling with hand outstretch’d above a little mouse that is scampering away. Why should this thing so hold me? and why do I welcome now the tiny beast, that hath come running up to me as if here in my cantos he had spied a crevice, and counting on my friendship would make it his home? ’Tis such a pictur as must by mere beauty of fitness convince natural feeling with added comfort. The soldier seeth the instinct of Selfhood in the mouse to be the same impulse that maketh virtue in him. For Brasidas held that courage ennobleth man, and from unworth redeemeth, and that folk who shrink from ventur of battle in self-defence are thereby doom’d to slavery and extinction: and so this mouse, albeit its little teeth had done him a petty hurt, deserved liberty for its courage, and found grace in man. ..... What is Beauty? saith my sufferings then.—I answer the lover and poet in my loose alexandrines: Beauty is the highest of all these occult influences, the quality of appearances that thru’ the sense wakeneth spiritual emotion in the mind of man: And Art, as it createth new forms of beauty, awakeneth new ideas that advance the spirit in the life of Reason to the wisdom of God. But highest Art must be as rare as nativ faculty is and her surprise of magic winneth favor of men more than her inspiration: most are led away by fairseeming pretences, which being wrought for gain pursue the ephemeral fashion that assureth it; and their thin influences are of the same low grade as the unaccomplish’d forms; their poverty is exposed when they would stake their charm on ethic excellence; for then weak simulations of virtues appear, such as convention approveth, but not Virtue itself, tho’ not void of all good: and (as I read) ’twas this that Benvenuto intended, saying that not only Virtue was memorable but things so truly done that they wer like to Virtue; and thus prefaced his book, thinking to justify both himself and his works. The authority of Reason therefor relieth at last hereon—that her discernment of spiritual things, the ideas of Beauty, is her conscience of instinct upgrown in her (as she unto conscience of all upgrew from lower to higher) to conscience of Beauty judging itself by its own beauteous judgment. from Book III. Breed How was November’s melancholy endear’d to me in the effigy of plowteams following and recrossing patiently the desolat landscape from dawn to dusk, as the slow-creeping ripple of their single furrow submerged the sodden litter of summer’s festival! They are fled, those gracious teams; high on the headland now squatted, a roaring engin toweth to itself a beam of bolted shares, that glideth to and fro combing the stubbled glebe: and agriculture here, blotting out with such daub so rich a pictur of grace, hath lost as much of beauty as it hath saved in toil. Again where reapers, bending to the ripen’d corn, were wont to scythe in rank and step with measured stroke, a shark-tooth’d chariot rampeth biting a broad way, and, jerking its high swindging arms around in the air, swoopeth the swath. Yet this queer Pterodactyl is well, that in the sinister torpor of the blazing day clicketeth in heartless mockery of swoon and sweat, as ’twer the salamandrine voice of all parch’d things: and the dry grasshopper wondering knoweth his God. from Book IV, Ethick Beauty, the eternal Spouse of the Wisdom of God and Angel of his Presence thru’ all creation, fashioning her new love-realm in the mind of man, attempteth every mortal child with influences of her divine supremacy ... ev’n as in a plant when the sap mounteth secretly and its wintry stalk breaketh out in the prolific miracle of Spring, or as the red blood floodeth into a beating heart to build the animal body comely and strong; so she in her transcendant rivalry would flush his spirit with pleasurable ichor of heaven: and where she hath found responsiv faculty in some richly favour’d soul— L’anima vaga delle cose belle, as saith the Florentine,—she wil inaugurate her feast of dedication, and even in thatt earliest onset, when yet infant Desire hath neither goal nor clue to fix the dream, ev’n then, altho’ it graspeth nought and passeth in its airy vision away, and dieth out of remembrance, ’tis in its earnest of life and dawn of bliss purer and hath less of earthly tinge than any other after-attainment of the understanding: for all man’s knowledge kenneth also of toil and flaw and even his noblest works, tho’ they illume the dark with individual consummation, are cast upon by the irrelevant black shadows of time and fate. ..... Repudiation of pleasur is a reason’d folly of imperfection. Ther is no motiv can rebate or decompose the intrinsic joy of activ life, whereon all function whatsoever in man is based. Consider how this mortal sensibility hath a wide jurisdiction of range in all degrees, from mountainous gravity to imperceptible faintest tenuities:—The imponderable fragrance of my window-jasmin, that from her starry cup of red-stemm’d ivory invadeth my being, as she floateth it forth, and wantoning unabash’d asserteth her idea in the omnipotent blaze of the tormented sun-ball, checquering the grey wall with shadow-tracery of her shapely fronds; this frail unique spice of perfumery, in which she holdeth monopoly by royal licence of Nature, is but one of a thousand angelic species, original beauties that win conscience in man: a like marvel hangeth o’er the rosebed, and where the honeysuckle escapeth in serpentine sprays from its dark-cloister’d clamber thru’ the old holly-bush, spreading its joybunches to finger at the sky in revel above rivalry. Legion is their name; Lily-of-the-vale, Violet, Verbena, Mignonette, Hyacinth, Heliotrope, Sweet-briar, Pinks and Peas, Lilac and Wallflower, or such white and purple blooms that sleep i’ the sun, and their heavy perfumes withhold to mingle their heart’s incense with the wonder-dreams, love-laden prayers and reveries that steal forth from earth, under the dome of night: and tho’ these blossomy breaths, that hav presumed the title of their gay genitors, enter but singly into our neighboring sense, that hath no panorama, yet the mind’s eye is not blind unto their multitudinous presences:—I know that if odour wer visible as color is, I’d see the summer garden aureoled in rainbow clouds, with such warfare of hues as a painter might choose to show his sunset sky or a forest aflame; while o’er the country-side the wide clover-pastures and the beanfields of June would wear a mantle, thick as when in late October, at the drooping of day the dark grey mist arising blotteth out the land with ghostly shroud. Now these and such-like influences of tender specialty must not—so fine they be— fall in neglect and all their loveliness be lost, being to the soul deep springs of happiness, and full of lovingkindness to the natural man, who is apt kindly to judge of good by comfortable effect. Thus all men ever hav judged the wholesomness of food from the comfort of body ensuing thereupon, whereby all animals retrieve their proper diet; but if when in discomfort ’tis for pleasant hope of health restored we swallow nauseous medicines, so mystics use asceticism, yea, and no man readier than they to assert eventual happiness to justify their conduct. Whence it is not strange (for so scientific minds in search of truth digest assimilable hypotheses) they should extend their pragmatism, and from their happiness deduce the very existence and the natur of God, and take religious consolation for the ground of faith: as if the pleasur of life wer the sign-manual of Nature when she set her hand to her covenant. But man, vain of his Reason and thinking more to assure its independence, wil disclaim complicity with human emotion; and regarding his Mother deemeth it dutiful and nobler in honesty coldly to criticize than purblindly to love; and in pride of this quarrel he hath been led in the end to make distinction of kind 'twixt Pleasur and Happiness; observing truly enough how one may hav pleasure and yet miss happiness; but this warpeth the sense and common use of speech, since all tongues in the world call children and silly folk happy and sometimes ev’n brutes. The name of happiness is but a wider term for the unalloy’d conditions of the Pleasur of Life, attendant on all function, and not to be deny’d to th’ soul, unless forsooth in our thought of nature spiritual is by definition unnatural.

After Rita Dove Apá, dying is boring. To pass las horas, I carve our last name all over my body. I try to recall the taste of  Pablo’s sweat. Whiskey, no. Wet dirt, sí. I stuff  English into my mouth, spit out chingaderas. Have it your way. Home of the Whopper. Run for the border. ¡Aguas! The mirror betrayed us. It erased your face from my face. Gave me mother’s smile, narrow nariz. Once, I wore her necklace. The gold slick, obscene. God, I was beautiful. Cada noche, I sleep with dead men. The coyote was the third to die. Your money is still in his wallet. Quien engaña no gana. Apá, there’s a foto, in my bolsillo, of a skeleton shrouded in black flames: Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte. Patron saint of smugglers, pick- pockets, & jotos. La Flaca. Señora Negra. La Huesuda. ¡Aguas! An animal is prowling this station. It shimmies with hunger. It shimmers with thirst. To keep it away, I hurl my memories at it. Your laughter is now snagged on its fangs. Your pain now breathes inside its lungs. Taste the feeling. Siempre Coca-Cola. America’s real choice — I gathered & smashed bottles. Apá, follow the glass snaking from the barrel to a mesquite to find my body. Lips blue, skin thick with scabs. Apá, kneel in the shade, peel the scabs. Touch our last name. Solís.

Humane Borders Water Station, 2004, by Delilah Montoya Far from highways I flicker gold the whispering gasoline if  I pinch her nipples too hard no joy for her no joy for me so I practice on ticks press them just so so they give but do not burst beneath my boots thistle & puncture vine a wild horse asleep on all fours its shadow still grazing my lips black meat my tongue black meat in my backpack sardine tins saltines & a few cough drops the moon is my library there’s a glacier inside a grain of salt do you understand I’m sorry my Albanian isn’t very good tremble if  God forgets you tremble if  God remembers you out of clay I shape sparrows I glaze their bills & claws I give them names like gossamer inglenook lagoon she bathed a trumpet in milk her tenderness acoustic & plural her pupils perched in all that green there’s nudity around the corner bones cracked & iridescent sometimes it rains so hard even the moon puts on a raincoat zinc razz zinc jazz I notch my arms I notch my thighs five six days I score my skin but not the back of my knees two ovals two portraits my son at ten his eyes ablaze my son at one his eyes shut once I dressed him in burlap once bicycles & marbles once I tore rain out of a parable to strike down his thirst

I swear on the melody of trumpet vines, ants feasting through animal crackers, Burt’s Bees, Tyler Perry movies, my daddy’s .38 slug, footie-socks inside high-top Jordans, disidentification, drag queens, blond dreadlocks, headstones salt-and-peppering the grass, vanilla wafers in banana pudding, Zeus-swan chasing, blunt-guts, sharp thumbnails, keloid scars, cash-only bars, R&B songs, on what the pot called the kettle. I put that on my mama’s good hair, on playing solitaire with a phantom limb, the white woman I go home to, my auntie’s face when she says:You know he always loved them pink toes. I put that on everything, on the signifiers I gobble up, candlesticks blown out by whistling lips. I put that on dervishing records scratched on down-beats, empty beehives, fresh-fade head-slaps, hand claps, bamboo shoots, liminality, mestizos, the purple-black crook of my arm, split sternums, on You can’t save him now. I put that on skinny jeans, get rich quick schemes—Gotta get that C.R.E.A.M. Know what I mean?—freckled black faces, leafless trees throwing up gang signs, phlegm hocked onto streets. I swear I catch more stones than catfish. I lose more collard greens than sleep. I think nothing is here but us darkies, high yellows, red bones, cocoa butters. Someone, no, everyone has jungle fever. Don’t touch my forehead. Blond as moonshine, mute trombone choking. I put that on Instagram. Post me to the endless chain of signifiers. Strawberry gashes on kneecaps,Let me get some dap, Newports, Kool’s, and folding chairs instead of barstools, that white drool caked on your face.Mommy please wipe away the veil. I thought I was passing into the eye of the streetlamp. I swear. I promise on frondless palm trees, long pinkie nails, sixteen years, serve eight, and Miss Addie’s red beans and rice, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and the brother on the Cream of Wheat box.It don’t mean a thing if it don’t buckle your knees. Open your hands. I’ll give you a song, give you the Holy Ghost from a preacher’s greasy palm—When he hit me, I didn’t fall, felt eyes jabbing me, tagging me.Oh no he didn’t!— give you the om from the small of her back. I put that on double consciousness, multiple jeopardy, and performativity.Please make sure my fetters and manacles are tight. Yea baby, I like bottomless bullet chambers. I swear on the creation of Uncle Tom— some white woman's gospel.She got blue eyes? I love me some—on Josiah Henson, the real Uncle Tom, on us still believing in Uncle Tom. Lord, have mercy! Put that on the black man standing on my shoulders holding his balls. Put that on the black man I am—I am not—on the black man I wish I was.

Back when the earth was new and heaven just a whisper, back when the names of things hadn't had time to stick; back when the smallest breezes melted summer into autumn, when all the poplars quivered sweetly in rank and file . . . the world called, and I answered. Each glance ignited to a gaze. I caught my breath and called that life, swooned between spoonfuls of lemon sorbet. I was pirouette and flourish, I was filigree and flame. How could I count my blessings when I didn't know their names? Back when everything was still to come, luck leaked out everywhere. I gave my promise to the world, and the world followed me here.

“If you open the brain from whence sprang Solomon and Aristotle and separate the lips in the fissure of Sylvius a triangle of cortex will appear. This is the Island of Reil.” Well put, anatomist. We are all careful, men of earth (a blind man can sense a post). Thus Newton pondered on falling apples and a Mixtec carved a humanist in jaguar bone. “How happy I was,” wrote the scientist after a long illness, “when once again I had something to investigate.”

Her Focusing on blanks, A, B, C, all of above. Your eyes lock on mine. Brain now a washing machine— facts, letters tumble and spin. Him Tests are less trouble for me since I have met you. Is it possible? Can having you in my life increase the size of my brain?