“Her hand touched me at the wrist. "If I gave you my life, you would drop it. Wouldn't you?"I didn't say anything.”

“If I gave you my life, you would drop it wouldnt you?”

“I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you.Someone like you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me in the last year. I didn’t feel scared. Icertainly wasn’t brave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa this grass, we should have laindown together, you in my arms, before we died. I wanted to touch that bone at your neck, collarbone,it’s like a small hard wing under your skin. I wanted to place my fingers against it. I’ve always liked fleshthe colour of rivers and rocks or like the brown eye of a Susan, do you know what that flower is? Haveyou seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye againstyour collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a treeand climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wire to cut. How did you know? Youkept saying I don’t know I don’t know, but you did. Right? Don’t shake, you have to be a still bed forme, let me curl up as if you were a good grandfather I could hug, I love the word ‘curl,’ such a slowword, you can’t rush it...”

“The Time Around Scars:A girl whom I've not spoken toor shared coffee with for several yearswrites of an old scar.On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white,the size of a leech.I gave it to herbrandishing a new Italian penknife.Look, I said turning,and blood spat onto her shirt.My wife has scars like spread raindropson knees and ankles,she talks of broken greenhouse panesand yet, apart from imagining red feet,(a nymph out of Chagall)I bring little to that scene.We remember the time around scars,they freeze irrelevant emotionsand divide us from present friends.I remember this girl's face,the widening rise of surprise.And would shemoving with lover or husbandconceal or flaunt it,or keep it at her wrista mysterious watch.And this scar I then rememberis a medallion of no emotion.I would meet you nowand I would wish this scarto have been given withall the lovethat never occurred between us. ”

“A postcard. Neat handwriting fills the rectangle.Half my days I cannot bear to touch you.The rest of my time I feel like it doesn’t matter if I will ever see you again. It isn’t the morality, it’s how much you can bear.No date. No name attached.”

“If I were a cinnamon peelerI would ride your bedand leave the yellow bark duston your pillow.Your breasts and shoulders would reekyou could never walk through marketswithout the profession of my fingersfloating over you. The blind wouldstumble certain of whom they approachedthough you might batheunder rain gutters, monsoon.Here on the upper thighat this smooth pastureneighbor to your hairor the creasethat cuts your back. This ankle.You will be known among strangersas the cinnamon peeler's wife.I could hardly glance at youbefore marriagenever touch you-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.I buried my handsin saffron, disguised themover smoking tar,helped the honey gatherers...When we swam onceI touched you in waterand our bodies remained free,you could hold me and be blind of smell.You climbed the bank and saidthis is how you touch other women the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.And you searched your armsfor the missing perfume.and knew what good is it to be the lime burner's daughterleft with no traceas if not spoken to in an act of loveas if wounded without the pleasure of scar.You touchedyour belly to my handsin the dry air and saidI am the cinnamonpeeler's wife. Smell me.”

“You built your walls too, she tells him. So I have my wall. She says it glittering in a beauty he cannot stand. She with her beautiful clothes with her pale face that laughs at everyone who smiles at her...”