—Bob Dylan I was born without a father, born again without another. I searched the grassy corridors of childhood, calling his name. Only the birds called back, then returned to ordering their feathers, dipping their beaks in muddy gutter water. If I kill an ant I kill it dead. I don’t want anything to suffer. Once I brushed a stinging column of them from my dress. I got down on my knees, watched how one, without a leg, limped in circles, sent two front legs out to stroke a crooked antennae, a gesture that reminded me of prayer. I knew it wasn’t true. I knew there was no mercy but me. Even at that young age the great questions had been set down. An empty plate. So I went on without, like everyone else. Calling, calling. That’s what the old man is doing now, sleeping under a bare tree in the park, his sack of clothes beneath his matted head. He’s twitching in dream.  One hand clutching the bald earth, the other waving me down.