Now I know such a thing could do the world good, not the crying, not simply the body and spirit’s self-recognition of pain, but the publicness of it, the body and spirit’s communicating to another’s body and spirit in one and only one language—that of deep, deep emotion—between the flesh of two free bodies. I say “free” here because it’s true—what is freer than that, freer than one body welcoming and receiving another’s in a state or condition so unchanged since the very beginning of bodies, a state or condition that has continually been jailed time and time again since that very beginning?

