“Très bien,” I said. I wrapped the strip around her finger.

Meg took over preparation of the salad.

Cathartes aura. At least five individuals were recovered, one of those being a juvenile. Cathartes appears to become increasingly common at the end of the Pleistocene, perhaps with the extinction of large scavenging birds such as Gymnogyps and Teratornis.

So often stories begin at their ends. The truth was, I didn’t know which end was the beginning or whether the middle was in the true middle or nearer to that end or the other, one being the beginning and the other the end, but, again, which end, or if the ends connected, like a snake eating its tail. So, here I have begun with my daughter, my family, a right place to start, logical and in all ways the center. Though my end is here, was there, my telling unfolds here. Much like the sounds of the birds in the dark outside my tent when I am alone near my cave, my story never hushes. I would lie in my bag and follow their songs one to the next, owls and corncrakes, nighthawks and poorwills.

resulting from autosomal inheritance of mutations in the gene CLN3

I watched my wife perform her nightly yoga routine. My routine was to watch.

“There’s something wrong,” Meg said.

“What?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

“I can’t talk to you during downward-facing dog.”

“Sorry.” She switched smoothly to warrior pose. Slightly better. “Just something in the air.”

I nodded. Such a statement would not have meant too much if I had not been feeling the same thing. I didn’t tell Meg as much. She was already worried.

“Are you ready for class tomorrow?” Meg asked.

“Did I mention that I hate this class?”

“Why?”

“I’m sick of describing and discussing the formation of rocks with people who are essentially rocks themselves.”

“You’re a geologist.”

“Your point being?”

“Why don’t you teach that karst course next semester?”

“Maybe. Are you done trying to turn me on yet?”

“Yes, I’m done. But I’m not prepared for class.”

“Well, you read your poems and poem-likes and I’ll lie here contemplating the metamorphic rock that is my penis. Perhaps it’s hornfels or marble. No, it’s novaculite tonight. The rhyming is for you.”

“Very nice. I’ll be in the den.”

“Gneiss, that’s what it is. Gneiss is nice. My plagioclase won’t last.”

“Good night.”

“Too late for my slate.”

“Good night, Zach.”

“Enjoy your iambics.”