b.

“She has a heart, too much heart perhaps.”

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night.”

“Life is little by little. Today I take half a step, the day after tomorrow I’ll take another half-step. Such impatience. I want to swallow life down in a single gulp and then maybe something like dying.”

“I don’t know how many births it takes to get reborn as not the flower but the scent. To be allowed to exist as air (a prayer to whom?)— dear whom: the weight of being is too much.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes. Each yes is a dish I’m going to prepare for the friends I’ve invited. I will chop up vegetables, skewer meat, make batter, beat eggs, crush chickpeas, prepare the mixture for pancakes, peel cloves of garlic, cut mint, shake the molokhiyya. I want my guests to believe all the dishes came down, full, from heaven, Yes.”

Oh God, she’s having wild thoughts, dream thoughts under the summer moon. She can feel the night working through her, she is the daughter of the night and the moon and her hair is streaming in the branches of the trees and her breath is the night sky.