Praise the craft, Alfonzo hummed. Praise the shoreline and the harbor. Praise this island with its pizza joints and its music clubs open late. Praise the wounded families who struggle. Praise friends and their couches lent for sleeping when it was not possible to sleep at home. Praise the employed and unemployed, the infirm and the well. Praise the steep hills of the Bronx, the oddly numbered streets of Queens, and the ponds of Brooklyn, blue-green with algae. Praise the animals and the storm which envelopes them. Praise today, what has passed, and all that is to come.

They huddled together in this blur of water dust. It was not snow or hail or rain or wintry mix, it was just water that had been circling the Earth for a long time, taking many forms. The unnameable mist enfolded the llama, the lemur, and the alpaca. Out in the river they saw the outline of the ferry becoming more solid as the boat approached the land.

They felt happy without knowing why.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Since the first flickerings of this book, I have been the beneficiary of so much support. Writing arises out of, and feeds into, my relationships with others. Friends and strangers have engaged in conversations and shared nuanced feedback, anecdotes, and their best puns. They not only humored but also took seriously my insatiable desire for animal talk. I only hope I have done their collective and individual brilliance some justice. It takes a herd.

Thank you, Allison Devereaux, Jeremy M. Davies, Deborah Ghim, Alexis Nowicki, Devon Mazzone, and everyone else at FSG for the expert shepherding. Working with you has been a dream and I feel beyond lucky.

Thank you, Erin Robinsong; Stephanie Acosta; Erin Dowding; Tricia Middleton; Caroline Picard; Aaron Boothby; Lani Hanna; Sara Clugage; Kristi McGuire; Cat Tyc; Bett Williams; Elizabeth Callaghan; Daniel, Paul, and Joanna Mehrer; Steve Cooper; Banoo Lashai; Josh Peskowitz; Sophie Harris; Corey Frost; Jacob Wren; Chris Kraus; Lisa Locascio; and Ariana Reines. Thank you, Eugene Lim, for the book’s title and for such generous literary guidance and encouragement. Thank you to Maya Smelof, Andy Matinog, and all my fellow students at Red Crow Yoga Shala. Thank you to all the animals I have known, but especially Z-Bat, Greycat and Chicken, Toulouse, Fiona, and Alfons.

Deepest gratitude and love to my family, Geri Murphy, Jessi Hazard, Ruby and Opal Campbell, and my father, Bruce Blevins, who passed on to another plane during the writing of this book, yet remains present and powerful.

And finally, endless love to Rob Callaghan, without whom this book would not exist. It was from him I first learned of Mitchell-Lama housing, which was the door to a labyrinth, and he has been with me in it ever since. He is a consummate and kind New Yorker, an artist in worker’s clothing, and a comrade in the most profound sense.

Also by Joni Murphy

ALSO BY JONI MURPHY

Double Teenage

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR