I've been wanting to ask her to have lunch with me. I often pop into her office to chat about books and music for a few minutes until my hair gets hot and my blood itchy and I have to leave.

2) The wheels of my handtruck get stuck between shadows of the perimeter. I am responsible for this flock of echoes feathering the corridor. I watch every woman recede and grow brighter before they are swallowed by the stairwell.

This life is an episodic failure to break through.

3) A few of us were sheltering under the bus shelter after work, waiting for the bus. I muttered something like, "The sun is raining. And the rain is bright."

"Almost sounds like a poem," she said.