010514 #max Eyes closed, pulse pounding slowly slowing. Every knurl of bark on every tree; every shoe-scuffed root protruding through the dust; every mottled speck of asphalt in the road; every pane of every darkened window in the closed-up, sleeping houses up and down the block. Every glimmer of each headlamp of each car that streaks away tangentially, caught up in the highway universe; every hiss of every tire. Every paltry note of every country song that briefly flares out of the open window of a beat-up truck, pulling out of the parking lot across the way. Every disappearing thing. Every forgotten autumn, every cookout, every hot dog, every half-uneaten bun. Every tick of every clock. Every penny in the drawer. Every hue of every rainbow on the oil-slick fetid water in the ditch between the park and road; every pebble; every blade of grass, even the dead ones, even the partial, even the half-lopped off, half-rotten ones that will never grow again. The rider on the merry-go-round, he loves them all. He sees them, feels them, he alone knows them, and he loves them all. The spinning slowly stops. He opens his eyes.