A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

by Anthony Marra

but nothing, she now knew, could be defined in exclusion, and every bug, pencil, and grass blade was a dictionary in itself, requiring the definitions of all other things to fulfill its own.

“That’s like asking if I believe in gravity,” he said. “It doesn’t require belief.”

Perhaps our deepest love is already inscribed within us, so its object doesn’t create a new word but instead allows us to read the one written.