He knows only one truth, and that is the color of Alexander's hair. It is most exquisite, such a beautiful red. He searches for ways to describe it. So red. Old roses or thinning, wine-colored maple leaves pressed between forgotten pages - that color. Yet, the more he tries to capture it with his brush and palette-knife, he cannot. The more he writes of it, the less he is able to see it. The more he desires to describe its features, the more they blur and become amalgamous in his mind's eye. ...

Her tongue, parchment-touched and vague has found a voice. It too was lost, a star-flecked tide until it saw its shore; now a pale flower, now a song of belly-hidden pearls, it birthed and was born. Fishermen may weave rope, taut and clever as the night-wind but empty as the sea is dark they will return. Grave will be their longing their sighs as ocean breath, and sore their feet from leaning hard against the waves. Heart precarious entwined as the cry of gulls with hope, with beaches of whit...

The fourth date not as memorable as the first or even the second and third, found them aimless, two a.m. sidewalk and late snow drifting down. Things were forgotten in its enchantment things like primal instinct; he was not thinking of slipping her skirt to the floor, she not remembering that somewhere between Salamanca and jars of olives, three empty rooms (dark and cold this time of year) sat in quiet wait. Most important of all they forgot even words fingertips not touching, eyes lifted an...