Standard Model (An Introduction to Imaginary Friends - Part II)

Editor's note:
Yes, this is the introduction and work statement that accompanies Imaginary Friends. I am leaving comments open on both the posts that unfold this poem and the individual chapters of the novel, and I invite my readers to conduct a conversation relating the information in the narrative to the expression of the structure in these verses.

I also want to take a moment to spell out dedications:

“Standard Model” is for Ibby Grace, Kerima Cevik, Melanie Yergeau, and Nicole Nicholson, who...