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33 Springfield The faucet in the kitchen mocked us, its steady pulse a gibe at our erratic rhythms, and in the distance, farmland stretched like corduroy—furrowed, dry. Somehow though we managed three winters’ glassy cracklings, the two-way county roads with dotted lines like coupons unredeemed. You recollect, I’m sure, the sound that morning I turned the ignition after the starter froze. Time did anything but pass with that same flurry of clicks. Evenings the wind curled up in trees, turning only once or twice in sleep. You’d think it might be easy, surrounded by so little motion, to light a match. Yet our bodies, no matter how we tried, joined like pieces from different puzzles— awkwardly, with small, unsightly gaps. One day your hair cascading, the next dammed up in a bun. Wines of black currant infused with peat. And then they began to stack— the doubts, regrets—like cordwood. If only we could have stoked an ember beneath the surface ash. We might have torched the entire stock. ...

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