September 2001

There are, of course, theories
about the wide-eyed, drop-jawed
fascination children have for them,
about how, before he's learned
his own phone number or address,
a five-year-old can carry
like a few small stones
the Latin tonnage of those names,...

Though there's no such thing as a "self," I missed it—
the fiction of it and how I felt believing in it mildly
like a book an old love sent with an inscription
in his hand, whatever it meant,
After such...