4:31 pm | 28 May 2003 | let us begin

Das schwere Herz wird nicht durch Worte leicht, i said, and the sky dropped rapidly into the dead taupe of severe weather, like someone had bound a dirty sheet over the city--and now the thunder is rolling in, slamming itself in echoes through the alley of my window like a mean drunk in a turnstile--a distant siren and men's voices amplified through speakers, through radios, through (beep-prefaced) walkie-talkies--and there's no rain yet but i can tell by the swell and ache in my right arm that something is coming--sheets of metal-sounding weather--he said There's two ways One is for lovers One is for cowards--and all i can think about, the moment the rain starts, is But what about the lovers with yellow hearts? --