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She could never quite figure it out:

did the link descend to the left or the right?
how big was the loop?

and an ear—just like that?

At the time, of course, she wasn’t familiar
with typography and its terminology.
She was writing poetry—
a limerick or an epic, maybe—
for the sake of writing,
pressing pencil to paper,
carefully tracing the shape in every case.
She moved slowly, deliberately across the lines,
letter by letter, lending character to each.

Yes, she thought, just like that.