I am not a religious man, but I do wonder about what exactly God was thinking when he designed man. We don’t think about it now, because faces seem so obvious, but when there weren’t any, it really wasn’t. If it were me, I think I would have designed something that looks more like a button on a frock coat. Something simpler. Or maybe one of those really beautiful Chinese kites. Something kind of exotic. Or something that means something. Maybe lips. Maybe just lips. I don’t write novels, I write poetry, so I think that if I had come up with lips I would have been very happy with man. I would have felt that he was complete. When I write poetry, sometimes I even lop off a few stanzas of a poem and feel better for having done that. It doesn’t even have to be my poems! Maybe if it had been up to me I would have made a complete face and would have lopped off the ears and hair and eyebrows and nose and stuff. I would have just stayed with the lips. But it wasn’t me. Maybe God is just lips. Maybe that is just where it started. Maybe for a while he was happy as a clam with man. And one day he looked and said, “I think I could use something more.” Of course he had no idea of what he was saying, but that is sort of how things are sometimes with us. And then we smile and sigh and roll up our sleeves and take a deep breath and say, “OK, now then, shall we?” with our lips. And we commence. And then it all gets a little crazy.

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