This is my chance to untangle the riddle—he’s a bramble, an enigma, a dew-eyed ramble, mouth full of quips, both the bird and the bush, brother and briar, a metabolic frolic. An off-kilter wallop. Able to pound out, scratch out, peck out—he’s no tabula rasa, he’s written up, written off into thousands of sunsets, black and white and red all over. He’s the noisiest quiet you’ll ever want to know, my big yes, my full court press, chary, a skinflint with lexicon, but rash on syntax; no warrior, yet nature built him compact—the better to swing a battle-axe—he told me that on our second date—a stray molecule yearning to burn in the bonds of delight, he’s my snake-bit baby, my history of the blues, my personal fuse-box, my litmus test, my witness, a stroll in a dog-park, no saint, but, yeah, the guy is something fresh about a bird . . .