[Persian Letters]

Dear Aleph, Like Ovid:I’ll have no last words. This is what it means to die among barbarians.Bar bar bar was how the Greeks heard our speech — sheep, beasts — and so we became barbarians. We make them reveal the brutes they are, Aleph, by the things we make them name. David, they tell me, is the one one should aspire to, but ever since I first heard them say Philistine I’ve known I am Goliath if I am anything.