I do not make phone calls, talk to anyone,
      let alone write. Even this letter
is mailed reluctantly. I move without cause,

The stories I fall upon are old and distant,
not mine nor my family’s nor my culture’s.

Leonardo da Vinci thought that you must make
the conquered beaten and pale, sides of the nose
wrinkled in bridges from nostrils to eyes,

But words strain in her ear, take on the nature of a malevolent fable