In the midst of stop-and-go self-pity, I steer the car shakily; in another universe, I may already have been killed at a stop sign rolled through without looking. In this other universe, collapsed in its black suitcase like an unprovable law of physics, we haven’t met yet, and I am still surprised when you hand yourself to me, strange as a winter rose; I grasp hold, eager and uncomprehending, glad even when the unexpected thorns tattoo my hand. In the ninth or tenth dimension, perhaps I marry some nice, ordinary man, and raise wide-eyed children; in another one still I go to Africa as planned, ride all night on the leopard of my anger, and return a shaman, or never return at all. Although I am dead already, although I am not yet born, although the children I might have had are doing the cakewalk, the rumba, the cha-cha-cha somewhere immaterial, in this world where I married you, I would do it again, not resisting the dangerous flower with its strange, painful fragrance of rust and garlic and another person’s tears mingled with mine, the achingly sweet, crushed-petal smell of love, still pungent even after it has left the room. Even knowing what I know. Even here, in this ridiculously difficult world, where traffic doesn’t stop for a woman crying in her car, clutching the steering wheel hard with both hands.