To think there is blood all over his young hands. To think that in a handful of months he will be conjuring nymphs, hummingbirds, and roses with those hands like an ink-stained magician as we listen and wonder and wonder. But meantime there is the body laid out in front of him, the heavy silver of the knife. Just beneath the soft skin, a heart beating, and he knows what each artery is named. A spirit alive in the bones and he knows what each ache means and how to turn it into birdsong.