here's to you, chuck

1.
When I am ill, waking in my body is like waking in a foreign country: a moment of vertigo until I am accustomed to a new, arid climate, one I first came to in the dark, shuddering towards sleep. Sun-dazzled women walk the streets of this city, in white dresses, and with bronzed limbs.

2.
Spring dissolves the ice like a shorn fleece or a tamped breeze. We go down to the river and toast it with goblets of its own blood.