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56 Variations without a Theme 1. In the wreckage of the heart, somebody has always run the stop sign. 2. There’s a theory for everything, but not a Theory of Everything, not one proven down to the last decimal point, one that would satisfy the lost explorers striking their little waxy matches deep in the cave. 3. Near sunset, the clouds heap up like the blushing buttocks of Greek goddesses. At such times, I wish that heaven were not beyond my reach. 4. I can think of several people who might want to kill me, but not one is Muslim. 5. Sometimes I’m torn between guilt and ease, as if work alone would set me free, as if sitting here, my mind at idle, were not its own kind of slow and sweatless labor. 6. North and south, a few have struggled in cold glory to reach the poles. But there’s a good reason you won’t find a balcony on an igloo. 7. I’m far too old for the low life—decadence at a distance is all I’m game for, and a quick piss at three a.m. 8. Summer’s at an end, and it’s all over—tomatoes, the ballpark, fireflies like little lighthouses washed out to sea. And now the schooling, now the early dark. 9. If it’s not too much trouble, some will say. But, of course, it’s always too much trouble, when what I want is just enough trouble, just enough heartbreak and mayhem to get by. ...

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