And What Did You Want? To Call

I Am A Cigarette With A Body Attached To It

What Do Any Of Us Really Know About Love?

It Ought To Make Us Feel Ashamed When We Talk Like We Know What We're Talking About When We Talk About Love.

But I Can Hardly Sit Still. I Keep Fidgeting, Crossing One Leg And Then The Other. I Feel Like I Could Throw Off Sparks, Or Break A Window--maybe Rearrange All The Furniture.

If We're Lucky, Writer And Reader Alike, We'll Finish The Last Line Or Two Of A Short Story And Then Just Sit For A Minute, Quietly. Ideally, We'll Ponder What We've Just Written Or Read; Maybe Our Hearts Or Intellects Will Have Been Moved Off The Peg Just A Little From Where They Were Before. Our Body Temperature Will Have Gone Up, Or Down, By A Degree. Then, Breathing Evenly And Steadily Once More, We'll Collect Ourselves, Writers And Readers Alike, Get Up, "created Of Warm Blood And Nerves" As A Chekhov Character Puts It, And Go On To The Next Thing: Life. Always Life.