“NO ONE WANTS to read poetry,” she said, leafing through the thin stack of Cantos I had written in the past year and a half. “What do you mean?” I said. “The Dying Earth was poetry.” “The Dying Earth was a fluke,” said Tyrena. Her nails were long and green and curved in the latest mandarin fashion; they curled around my manuscript like the claws of some chlorophyll beast. “It sold because the mass subconscious was ready for it.”
