You are in love for the first time. You are twelve. Next to you is a deaf girl, maybe ten years old. The two of you are on a train easing its way through the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. You are so sure of this girl you tell her everything. How you voice is changing its shape. How you are becoming something remarkable. She smiles at you, touches your arm. Later on, in a darkening of the trees she sleeps on your shoulder. Gives to you the soft whispers of her breath. When she wakes up, you realize you are over thirty years old. The young girl says words to you that seem out of shape, far away. Then she starts talking to you with her hands. You begin to understand the makings of her language¡ªwhere rain becomes a drizzle of fingers and where, soon, if will be a heavy enough rain that she will show you how to make rivers with your hands, your thumbs anchors against the long, wild rush of water.

You have probably come across those scales in planetariums that tell you how much you would weigh on other planets.

You have noticed the fat ones lingering on the Mars scale and the emaciated slowing up the line for Neptune.

As a creature of average weight, I fail to see the attraction.

Imagine squatting in the wasteland of Pluto, all five tons of you, or wandering around Mercury wondering what to do next with your ounce.

How much better to step onto the simple bathroom scale, a happy earthling feeling the familiar ropes of gravity,

157 pounds standing soaking wet a respectful distance from the sun.

In the democracy of daisies every blossom has one vote. The question on the ballot is Does he love me?

If the answer's wrong I try another, a little sorry about the petals piling up around my shoes.

Bees are loose in the fields where daisies wait and hope, dreaming of the kiss of a proboscis. We can't possibly understand

what makes us such fools. I blame the June heat and everything about him.