{ 9 }

I want to tell you Samira how it is right now a small stack of books on my desk their covers all red by a happy coincidence one is yours In the Shadow of Grenada or In the Shade of Granada I haven’t worked on it yet but the top one was published in 1968 /\ Disease, Pain, & Sacrifice: Toward a Psychology of Suffering \/ and when I open it here in front of you across the world I see the word pain multiplied on the page /\ Pain as a Demand upon a Higher Telos and The Phenomenally Ego-Alien Nature of Pain and at the top The Paradox of the Function of Pain and we know that pain pronounced pan spells bread in \ one of your / extramaternal \ tongues // I read it \/ whose I is this anyway \/\ read it first as In the Shadow of the Grenade.

{ 11 }

I say that to write the most banal things you must first write of your [    ] of your [     ] of your [     ] of the love of [       ] of [       ] of [       ] of [       ] and [      ] of [      ] and [      ] [      ] and of the [      ] of the [ ] of [    ] of [    ] of [    ] of [    ] of [    ] of the [    ] of [     ] of [     ] of the [     ] and [     ] [     ] and of the [     ] I say all of this is almost [

{ 13 }

That which predisposes toward an encounter that which is meant by the argument against a private /\ language that which is presented as an argument against empathy that which joins the passions into a com /\ passion when I translate your words using nonhuman means into an alphabet whose calligraphy I don’t know I have reason /\ to question /\ the accuracy of the result especially words like sex and ruins like Pagan like incest like rapist and suspicion I am willing to be wrong I stand / corrected most of the time Samira I would prefer not to be wrong / about certain /\ terms /\ among them ‘night sweats’ with which I am \ familiar thanks to my / thanks to everyone’s /\ condition.