.

in the same way that L had slipped her
tiny hand through mine, interlaced it
and held on while busy doing something else,
I was reminded of S, how he used to do the
same, usually when taking notes, when only
half-aware, fingertips softly grazing the
palm, incessantly tracking contours with
something that moved beyond familiarity,
until he could hold it in his head, in the
same way a sculptor studies form, not seeing
with the eyes, but with the heart of a desire
to blindly memorize an outline, as if it
framed a wound he had once treated

"Beauty has no other origin than a wound,
unique, different for each person, hidden
or visible, that everyone keeps to himself,
that he preserves, and to which he withdraws
when he wants to leave the world for a
temporary but profound solitude...Giacometti's
art seems to me to want to discover that
secret wound of every being, and even of
every object, so that it can illumine them."
(Jean Genet)