Grace – Agha Shahid Ali, 1949–2001 I suppose it's only human nature to use trade jargon to signify one's membership in the guild, possession of the arcane and potent lore of the few, the elect – doesn't the alchemist have his azoth, the bishop his ambo, his ciborium – thus the physician masks the bitter draught of diagnosis and prognosis within an effusion of words so sweet in their sonic grace when intoned slowly enough, slow as an agonal breath, long words of ancient provenance that bespeak the toga, the oracle, the goddess, achingly beautiful words, ewers into which are poured long vowels and multiple syllables, like leukopenia, septicemia, glioblastoma. [End Page 23] Immortality Gatling and Colt, Mauser and Lüger, Kalashnikov, Uzi – you men of invention live on in the hammer and the grip, muzzle and buttstock, bluing, fire, recoil – wherever you are blood pools, wound and clot flashing the code, your family name shattering bone. Correspondence if you see my other son, cain, son of man, tell him that i – Dan Pagis, "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway Car" In the Hebrew of the Bible and of today I understand [End Page 24] the di-syllabic word adam is also the word for man so in the Arabic of the Koran and of today must it not be true that two like syllables mean the same two things – Adam, man – and don't bin and ben both mean son of HIV Needs Assessment Everywhere the faces, hair, limbs are coal, obsidian, flawless black sapphire, thus the rare mzungu* like me stands out the way those few white moths once did on industrial London's sooted trees. A month fluttering The Warm Heart of Africa's long length on this Needs Assessment. We've found the needs many. But let us not talk of that, as the people do not. Focus instead on the vivid oleander & limpid sky [End Page 25] that domes the arid volcanic hills, its lapis mirrored in the uniforms of the file of schoolgirls who stride the side of the road. And when the talk, matter-of-fact, beyond resigned, bears left at the roundabout, glances upon a cousin's funeral attended yesterday, the two added children your colleague from Lilongwe is now raising alone, funeral venues for this weekend, just sit there as the Project Vehicle propels you onward to the next Site, past the lone ads for toothpaste & for study opportunity abroad, & the many for caskets ("lightweight, can be carried by one"), & say nothing. Scariest Movie Growing up, the scariest movie I ever saw was Invisible Monster. This guy in a dark trenchcoat and dark hat carried the monster with him wherever he went, in a hard-sided, snap-lock suitcase. [End Page 26] Every so often, to the dysphonic strains of violins, he'd crack it open, to give us a hint of its mighty force. Hounds howled, lamp-posts toppled, power lines hissed, we kids cowered in the balcony. It was clear there'd be no end to the havoc should he open his suitcase wide. Each night the unseen drove me to the middle of my parents' bed, twenty-three nights straight. I can't recall the guy's face or voice, but I swear he's still out there, and my parents are dead. Heel Rhonda, my gentle and sturdy mix of border collie and malamute, who bears the endless probes of two-year olds with that good nature bred into pack breeds, and limits her urgency to the never ending, always futile quest for squirrel and vole, who would smother any burglar so grossly ill-informed as to hope a cache of riches awaited him with her wet nose and dangly tongue, whose pacific acceptance of restraint and rebuke is Buddhist and boundless, [End Page 27] has just torn for the throat of her fellow mongrel, blind, gaunt, flatulent Maxx, now-decrepit mutt...