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18 THE EL IS FOR LONGING Somewhere up the tunnel the train I just missed is lecturing me on longing, its management, cost and long-term care. It cites Duvaucel, who saw a gibbon washing the faces of her young in a dream, so intense was her grief; Gosse, who was ten when he thought that by drinking seawater he’d be able to walk on it; Darwin, who bit off the claws of a kitten with his teeth, his passion for truth was so deep; Fitzgerald, who sent Dick, not Nicole, into exile in “some small town north of Buffalo” because he so longed for Zelda; and finally me, on that day I followed that girl as we got off the El to a brownstone on Twenty-Third and Chestnut and a tall brown door she closed gently but firmly against me. I have been looking for her ever since. Every morning is another equinox. We need redemption from impossible longing. Forlornly, the widow registers the change in the leaves and fingers the taped-up bat in the umbrella stand. The tracks chorale in stacked fifths. Darwin, Duvaucel, Dick Diver, you in your whites, this is where we get off. ...

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