I believe in a creative god who's trying to do the best that he or she can do,
very often against huge odds. And therefore this god, who's created us,
wants us to come back again because, like most artists,
they want to improve on the earlier work.

by Norman Mailer

I

Tuco read the lines again
savoring the irony and hope
blended into grit.

There is that, he thought, which is neither one
nor two.
We are neither one
nor two.

Arlu hated it when he started talking like that.
So he'd stopped talking.
The ground did not open
and swallow him up.
He was relieved.

The arc toward perfection
is a twisty path.
The road to clear sight is dusty.

Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
One is always living a little more or dying a little bit.

by Norman Mailer

II

Arlu considered the lines again
smoothing the crease between in
and out.

There rests in that crease
an irony.
Slow cooked,
quickly consumed.

Yet it is never fully digested.
It recurs in thought
and in action.

The sweep is high sounding
yet low riding toward a horizon
tilted up
and away.

Arlu turns once more
to her path
toward
and away
from Tuco.
Each felt
like living more.
But she wondered... puzzled
over the path to truth,
to life.

Growth, in some curious way, I suspect,
depends on being always in motion just a little bit, one way or another.

by Norman Mailer

III

Tuco turns toward the sunrise.
He knows no other path.

For any path is motion
toward something
unknown,
something
hoped for
yet, still,
unexpected.

There is that, he thought,
which is neither one
nor two.
We, each of us,
are neither one
nor two.