[excerpt…]

You’re sitting across from me looking brilliant and I’m

feeling dumb, wishing I knew more

about science, that I could say something elaborate

about the synapses clicking in your brain as you move

your head to the left and look out the window, even though you’re really

looking at a bedroom inside you, or maybe a forest

of trees you don’t know the names of, and I don’t care

about the names of things either but I want

to say something about your hands and

angels on the ceilings of churches in Rome but

we’re in Mississippi where the trees

are still green even at

the end of November, and today the sky

was so wide and so blue, like it was trying to fit

the whole world in its mouth, which is how

I feel when I look at you…