Thank God for other people’s parents and kids,

families made to order and marriages of inconvenience. If I had to start from scratch, I might just change my mind. The itch is strong, but it doesn’t last too long. An empty table might be like looking at a plate too full for eating, a battle too long for fighting. Before it’s over, you forgot why you were there in the first place. One way or another we make ends meet, odds and ends meeting in lines and bars and open spaces, under covers and dirty drawers and filthy files. The world has a life of its own, born in a swirl of open equations and feeding on the dreams of its spurious offspring. We patch things together the best we can, a quilt born of necessity, cozy and warm and infinitely expandable. Male and female find each other with biological radar, hormones and pheromones mixing and mingling on the dance floor. The smell of future sex wafts outward on wobbly legs and uncertain feet, soon cracking the code and catching the rhythm, doing the latest steps without effort nor affectation, a honeybee revealing the source of available nectar. Don’t look down when you’re learning to fly.