Who Would Give Me A Valentine

Lacking any Polaris - and the enemy's beaver traps all smashed past recognition - I lace my shoes and set out for a Vermont that has only ever existed in my dreams. A photograph, being itself a kind of preservation, is intended for preservation. It's no accident the veins on our wrists and forearms mimic trails in the forest. What is discernible under sufficient moonlight and what if anything is not. At the last bridge - fledglings chirping in the nest above our shoulders, long-dead Pharisees re-transcribing Leviticus - we invented but did not partake of a "last first kiss." Trouble is, the map of the territory is in the territory and we tend to overlook recursiveness. Words are coarse-grained, approximate, prone to rust so our tongues only ever do half of what they promise. So my plans to write a history of clowns has gone the same way as my plans to raise dairy goats, so what? The only woman who would give me a valentine doesn't give valentines to anyone. Forgive me, Beloved. I arrived a long time ago and forgot to tell you. The years, they have passed like a disease, leaving stunned survivors to begin again.