the sounds of small tasks, grinding, pouring, riffling through yesterdays attacks or market slump, then changing my mindwhat matter the rush to the waiting room or the ring of some later dubious excuse? having decided to return to bed and finding you curled in the sheet, a dream fluttering your eyelids, still unfallen, still asleep, I thought of the old pilgrim when, among the fixed stars in paradise, he sees Adam suddenly, the first man, there in a flame that hides his body, and when it moves to speak, what is inside seems not free, not happy, but huge and weak, like an animal in a sack. Who had captured him? What did he want to say? I lay down beside you again, not knowing if Id stay, not knowing where Id been.