his mouth. Airplanes bother him. They get in through his

ears and buzz like flies trapped in a window, because everything

turns into something else. Himself is not himself. The Lord has

gobbled him down and excreted him out.

Here Mathias paused and addressed the audience. “In other words,” he said, “Holy shit.”

After a moment people laughed, some of them, because what else were they supposed to do? Mathias returned to the poem. He read the whole of it, hammering the words into place. When he was finished, people applauded, Mathias left the stage, and another poet took his place. I could see how he might not be someone easy to like, but you would have to pay attention to him.

It occurred to me to search for footage of the poet who had read after Mathias and here another video popped up, a different camera or different angle, and it swept the audience to show Mathias and, yes, Viridian sitting together. It was only a few seconds of film, but the camera seemed caught by their remarkable faces. I started and stopped and started the video again and again, and I hated the way she looked toward him and how he looked away, but maybe I was imagining things, and anyway it was all over a long time ago.

Even though fire season had stayed quiet so far, there were still fires up north, and sometimes that smoke drifted south and turned the sky to a thin no-color. If I wrote poems, I would write one about how the world brooded and smoldered, even as I did the same over Aaron. Then I decided it would come off as grandiose and cheesy, so never mind. I guess I was becoming a better critical thinker, to realize that I’d be writing slop.

A couple of days later, in the afternoon, I went to the Presidio in search of Lolly Robinette. The sky lightened as I drove south, and by the time I reached the city, it was blue overhead. I’d only driven past or through the Presidio before. A big place, with woods and promenades and old military barracks, a golf course, a Disney store, crowds of people strolling or on bicycles and scooters, tourists clutching maps. The odds of finding one small old lady didn’t seem good. But here Lolly was, exactly as she’d said she’d be, on a bench just off one of the plank walkways. She waved as I approached. “Lovely day,” she said, not at all surprised to see me. I was sort of relieved that she was wearing a hat, a kind of knit turban, so I didn’t have to either look at her bald head or pretend not to look at it.

“Shall we walk?” She took my arm. We went slowly. Sunlight sifted through the trees overhead, eucalyptus and Monterey pine.