I wish I could hold your liquid opinions in the crooked palms of my hands, and play them, softly, on my tongue as my fingertips on a piano. I put your words there now, enunciating carefully as I go; like a newborn learning to speak or crawl, or whatever it is that babies do. A newborn may be too young, perhaps, but what do I know of babies? Aside from the fact that I am one, in this moment. I begin to learn these letters as I knit. Perhaps I am knitting them into place; into their niches between my palms and fingers. There's a tree outside the window. Do you see it? I press the slightly pointed tip of my nose up against the pane and you do too, next to me. We watch the leaves drip down into the air. Perhaps it likes to drink as well. I turn as I say this, to look at your rehearsed reaction; to watch you enunciate; but you aren't there. So I must do it for you, again. I mouth the words show-off blow them into the fermented air. I walk myself back to the sofa and begin to knit again, trying to figure out what it was that I had just said. That you wanted to say, or would have wanted. I have always wondered what it's like to walk into the sea. It doesn't seem like the waves would be mad at me. Maybe they can teach me. Sometimes I think I'll build a city there. With the seashells and the pearls. The water and the coral. If I do, I think I would be numb. That is how it feels to drown isn't it? Or bathe. I finish knitting and pull the cloth away from the needle. They resist a while, but eventually are forced to give way. I won't need them, now. I rest my neck and am surprised at the conversations we have had in my mind. It feels almost unnecessary for us to speak, now that we are both numb. Still, my mind knows to read from your words better that I do. It has them in the cradle of its forearm. Do you see it? But we don't need the words do we? In the city in the sea?