Beyond this windbreak of dying trees it’s clear enough some days to look down into a valley that’s the faded amber of acid stained paper. Some matte silver thing runs through those yellowed pages like a knife. There was a story once about boys on ponies on a summer morning. The lead type of this story — set by careful, unseen hands - bit deep into the bright white rag paper I held in my beet stained hands long ago. It might have been Russian. That story. The low lying golden place lets me think of that other summertime place alive on the page. Didn’t someone once write We are born remembering ?

Now you're writing messages in vapor on the glass because paper is forbidden. We read your gnomic accounts before you erase them with that tatty houndstooth hanky you’ve always carried. We’re nearby more than is safe for any of us. It looks like you’re holding up. Do you still feel strong? My eyes stream a gritty, gluey gruel. Teeth are all loose. Mouth tastes like hot metal. I need somewhere safe to sleep this off. We have to fight always to remember. Everything. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.