They arrive just after the mail slides into my basement. Gruesome, pieces that portend the ends, pieces that illuminate the furnace with a band of indomitable cream: I dream about employment at the mouse trap factory, where my father and my father’s father worked, but I was born with hapless eyes and the attention of a gemstone. Treat me better, my legs whisper, don’t grind me to tent pegs the way the viejos have