my neighbor has been beating his wife again. i hear dry sobs resonate through the courtyard. there is nothing to do. to whom do i run and say : enough. we have had enough and now this must end. i join her at the window, and we stare at each other across the summer air hanging in between us like a curtain. she knows that i know, tears run down my face and neck. they drip onto the railing and my hands. she weeps, too, and we stare at each other while the air grows blurry by our sadness, while soft red vines crawl up her arms and neck, blossom sweetly across her face. both of us thinking about the different routes that love takes to enter the human heart.