Alice loved poetry. John loved poetry. Mary and Michael and Susan loved poetry. They went to a restaurant to sit together at a table and talk about the thing they loved. In walked David, who did not love poetry. He sat by himself at a small circular table, where he could hear other people talking but not what they were saying, and after he ordered he sat dreaming of mountaintops, of standing on a mountaintop looking down on the valley below, of watching a river snaking in the distance, of the wind in his hair. Still, being in a restaurant dreaming of mountaintops, he might as well have been fishing for pine needles. So David thought about his wife, who did not love poetry and did not love mountaintops, but loved red thread, which she collected for no reason and to no purpose. David thought of the time he stole a few strands from her desk and threw them in a stew he was making, to surprise her, but when he ladled the stew into her bowl and watched her eat it, it was apparent she didn’t even notice. Still, a few hours later she seemed inexplicably happy, so he closed his eyes and thought of that.