As a child you studied the anatomy of butterflies, like Nabokov, you studied the intricacies of wings, their dotted red-orange patterns, the elbows and curves of their genitalia—lamella: liplike element; corpus bursa: component of genital duct; aedeagus: the penis.

It had never before occurred to me that butterflies had genitalia. And they were only beautiful to me if seen from afar. But you liked them close.

Small creatures that come from eggs—I suffered near them. Moths, and bees, and mosquitoes, and flies. It was their inability to be polite as they approached and their persistence.

I sleep with pillows draped over my head.

7.

The fear of belly buttons, omphalophobia. You hated belly buttons, and you hated the sounds of dry cotton being manipulated, of cotton swabs in ears, or of tissues in nostrils, or anyone who would touch your belly button with cotton.

8.

We kissed only once, in my bedroom and behind the bed. We were playing hide and seek and we both hid in the same place, so there was no seeking, no one sought anyone else. The synthetic toys were spread everywhere, spread all over the porcelain tile, the sun leaning against the window, and the coldness of your hands on my cheeks as you held me in place.

I’ve told all the people since to place their hands on my cheeks, not like that, like this, yes, here, just so.

9.

It was your cousin Valter that pointed out the differences in our skin tones and in our hair, how you had a shorter torso, a flat behind. My hair was overwhelming, he said.

Valter, his name means ruler of the army.

I had never cared about these details before he mentioned it. We were on a blue boat when he mentioned it.

The jellyfish1 poisoned me that day, stinging my left inner thigh. With their busy arms they poisoned me. Someone’s urine was used to stop the burning, maybe Valter’s, though it is medically unadvised.

10.

The word comes abruptly, like the light and the sheep and the fields from the window of the train, the word for grapefruit, there it is, pompelmo.

11.

Sometimes I want a moment of recklessness, or something altogether new. I watch myself cry in the bathroom mirror. I like to watch myself cry in a mirror, or in a window, in a broken television, in any reflective surface, really.

12.

My favorite view is a body when it is hanging on a bed, breasts swimming toward the arms, the arms down at your sides, armpits with forgotten hair, and the ribs, arched bone. There are usually a dozen, they curve and wrap around, connecting to the spine, the sternum, there are ribs that float. Did you know? Floating ribs. And the knees, of course, largest joint, we take the largest joint for granted—the cartilage, the fluid and meniscus; the knees touching, close and touching, then the thighs, and again the ribs, the ribs.

13.