The idea of not knowing where she was in relation to what else was
there. Intelligence displaced, and where to gesture -- or to whom. Without
any reason to do anything, knowing without proper equipment she would be
fragile as a bubble. She was already a bubble. And these were embers in a
forge. Sparklers in dark trees.
    
	This was the escape route, and in the tub she was pretending
weightlessness. Imagining being dead, but being bored. Which you would be up
there too after seeing everything once. Or would tolerance drop to the point
that it was enough there was the occasional twinkle. Somehow it seemed like
cheating to have the earth down there, ice caps gleaming back, cerulean
shell, recognizable shapes of this or that continent.
    
	Is that Asia on its side?  (Here are photographs of forests.)  (Here are
mountains, like trails of graves.)  (Here are reels of romantic landscapes.)
(Here is earth predictable enough for sleep.)
    
	And always the danger of nodding off.
    
	(An island boy, only waiting for someone civilized enough to know how
beautiful he is.)  (Their name for this place is very different.)
    
	Is like static, which is like air.
    
	Sails passing close, curtains rippling. The house is near a harbor, and
a painting of this harbor hangs on the wall. And the light in that painting
is so perfect and so beautiful. (Who could have resisted ships back then?
Who wouldn't have thought the world was being brought to you?)  Is like

	thunder, which is echo. Ripple of 

	landscape, roots, and undergrowth, and a thick ooze of green and blue.
Flick. (Fly.)  Dry sun. Orange streets. Shiver. (Fever.)  Ship.
(Wake.)  Beveled glass. Imagine the

	kettle, whistling, and freshly laundered sheets. And desire to pretend
to be taken care of here like someone who will never recover, and
never know.