I wish I could provide the reader with cut-out figures and parts of attire as given in paper-doll charts for children armed with scissors. It would brighten a little these dark evenings that are destroying my brain.

the king in exile is himself the regicide, and the poet who can put your world into words doesn't have the heart, he has the soul of an american, divorced from his homeland and the reality of difference. as the carnival takes over your mind your country is stripped away and your language fails. two tongues, always one of them English. everyone bemused, your very life before america a childish fiction that couldn't possibly be believed. if only someone could write you your home; if only you never had to leave, or have it leave you.

I was holding all Zembla pressed to my heart.