WANTED:

a novel I've never read by an author who writes in breathing living prose that peels up off the page, taking shape, in images, voices, sounds--as cold as the ocean, as dark as my morning coffee, as soft as the ending of summer--melancholy, but not pessimistic

the opening of a new room upstairs, rearrangement of my mental furniture to accommodate some new metaphor, effortless removal from the present, fragrant and real as the lilacs next door, tragic enough to weep over

I want to fall, lost, between words, arranged like I've never seen, disappear for a few hours or a day, fall in love with yet another act of fiction, I'm all acts of fiction,

and so are you.

Oh Jake, Brett said, we could have had such a damned good time together.
Yes. I said. Isn't it pretty to think so?