“I thought about asking if I could draw you,” he says into the sunlight, squinting. I want to study him too. His hair is messy and long; it falls over his face as he speaks. His eyebrows are thick hyphens. He’s tall, broad-shouldered. His right leg shakes even when he’s sitting still. The total effect is that he seems to cleave into negative space, to subjugate it. I read somewhere that before colonization Crees were the tallest people on Earth. What are we now?
