and I continue to write to S, who soon begins to reply. The two persistent jobs continue to persist in their dissimilar places and ways. My mentor is still absent; the clients’ numbers remain undialed in my phone.

The husband and the wife—in my mind—have delayed their talk indefinitely. Or until summer, and summer has arrived.

This procedure of time is not categorically clear: one track moves and another stays still or reverses; the resulting blur makes experience hard to read.

Or: the image of the present has been superimposed on its past and future twins.

(The twins, now, are acting up—the phase of tantrums, the phase of “no.”)

Send them outside to work it out. Realign the tracks: mine, theirs, S’s, the two groups’ (Anti-Love and Love, one intact but soon transforming, one defunct or nearly, but with a digital tail), the syllabi’s (official, absorbed, implied), the love philosopher’s and the anarchist’s and those of the capitalist, my missing mentor, Pablo, and the rest—also the passage of geological time. The days have lengthened. The solstice has come and gone. The mushrooms are fruiting in their bins. The couple from the café stormed off in opposite directions, first the contemptuous one, and then the hopeful one.

This happened months ago, but I’m only remembering it now.

TWO

THE NEWS REPORTS

The Guérillères is a book I possess but do not own.

It was handed to me by a friend in a bookshop: Kansas City, Missouri; or Kansas City, Kansas; or Lawrence.

You’ll read it, said the friend, and then return it to me. You have one year, after which the deal is off.

Without specifying the other half of the deal.

I begin it on a subway, and again on a plane, and again on a ferry. It begins the same each time, and each time I remember to add it to the syllabus for Anti-Love. Then I forget, set it aside, pick it up again (on a train). It begins the same.

On the cover: a topless warrior, Medusa-like, swampy grays and greens. Not topless: the warrior’s breasts protrude like weapons. As if sharpened on stone.

The clock is ticking. Swipe it from the screen.

Say the Guérillères:

GOLDEN SPACES LACUNAE

THE GREEN DESERTS ARE SEEN

THEY DREAM AND SPEAK OF THEM

RESEARCH

I receive a message from S that contains only a link to a website for the local used bookstore (this is in the city, home of Love, the bodega, playground, and café), and a telegraphic instruction: “Give the desk clerk your name.”