for Anne have been holding their breath since you brought them, a good fist of the most astonishing hue, whose jug I have replenished twice, each time half expecting to hear a desperate gulp as I bore their blue bobbing heads back to my desk— balloons of pent air a complexion so intense they seem to emanate the mystical auras given to saints. I can hardly look at them without becoming breathless, without feeling as if I need to suck in a quick lung-full for them— tell myself, I am not a person who would stand by and watch another…