"Not important, okay?"

The morning told us otherwise. The crickets refuse to die. There's rain, then it's gone, the cat that has managed to win his affections sits as nothing happens, as a car turns the corner. I remember the bird who was so startled when I climbed up the pine tree in our backyard, his three-minute silence, and the loud protective squalk when he decided to fly away. No one had climbed that tree for years, at least 5, since I had been living in this house, younger, before moving to New York. 

Anyway. That's not the point. Bethlehem used to have a train to New York and Philadelphia. They tore it up. Wallingford has one train a day, I used to hear it first on the other side of the phone, a hairs-width after David, and then again in real life, as the whistle crossed the town and up to my hill, my house. Anyway. That was my first intellectual relationship. The things I learned with Adrian were emotional: any intellect was personal affair, like the pierced tongue.

"There are courts over there - " 

"I really just think I want to run."