Every hero the writer must approach only approximately. The eyes, for example, must resemble Roman candles, like the eyes of the actors in Wilhelm Meister arriving at night in freight wagons before the castle of a count, as noted in Jean Paul’s School for Aesthetics.
My lover shuffles the deck, fanning the cards into a bridge. The cards arc like a rainbow, then fly wildly through the air like fish hurling out of the water into the mouths of bottled-nosed dolphins that leap to catch them in their hungry mouths.
My nights are packed with mourning—barn swallow in the closet, fishhook attached to its beak.
It’s raining again, you say. Near flow and no-slip. Car on the curvature of space and time and boxed wine. Here: the clear empty well of a disappointed glance.
We have begun the experiments. Peek-a- Boo Birdhouse, with two-way mirror so the
girls can spy on chirpy hatchlings, watch cartoons, and cry.