In 1999 Marla picks me up from the old airport and introduces me to Austin. She sends me to lunch with a poetry professor, deposits me in a workshop in the book-lined room upstairs. She guides me home with Gaye to her enormous condo. She points me north to walk through Hyde Park for a few hours. She tells me where I might live. Someday we will be swapping recommendations for HVAC installations, discussing the merits of two-stage versus variable systems. Someday I’ll be admiring the string of vintage Valentines hanging above her dining room table. It is coming. We just don’t know it yet.

February 14, 2015