“Small, red, and upright he waited,gripping his new bookbag tightin one hand and touching a lucky penny inside his coat pocket with the other,while the first snows of winterfloated down on his eyelashes and covered the branches around him and silencedall trace of the world.”

“It was not fear of ridicule,to which everyday life as a winged red person had accommodated Geryon early in life,but this blank desertion of his own mindthat threw him into despair.”

“let's do something cheerfulall your designs are about captivity, it depresses me.Geryon watched the top of Herakles' headand felt his limits returning. Nothing to say. He looked at this factin mild surprise. Once in childhoodhis ice cream had been eaten by a dog. Just an empty conin a small dramatic red fist.Herakles stood up. No? Let's go then. On the way home they tried "Joy To The World"but were too tired. It seemed a long drive.”

“THE PRESOCRATIC PROBLEM[all snap flags]Parmenides named his gun The Hot Power of the Stars. His gun was one, uncreated, imperishable, timeless, changeless, perfect, spherical. Spherical was the problem.”

“Then a miracle occurred in the form of a plate of sandwiches.Geryon took three and buried his mouth in a delicious block of white bread filled with tomatoes and butter and salt.He thought about how delicious it was, how he liked slippery foods, how slipperiness can be of different kinds.I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.”

“When they made loveGeryon liked to touch in slow succession each of the bones of Herakles' backas it arched away from him into who knows what dark dream of its own, running both hands all the way downfrom the base of the neckto the end of the spine which he can cause to shiver like a root in the rain.”

“...Heracles was strangely silent. What is he thinking? / Geryon wondered. / Geryon watched prehistoric rocks move past the car and thought about thoughts. / Even when they were lovers / he had never known what Herakles was thinking. Once in a while he would say, / Penny for your thoughts! / and it always turned out to be some odd thing like a bumper sticker or a dish / he'd eaten in a Chinese restaurant years ago. / What Geryon was thinking Herakles never asked. In the space between them / developed a dangerous cloud.”