Seed and dough, bean and bread, a sacred mixture. She says his nipples are like coffee beans. (And her own she says,are breadfruit.) She spends afternoons prowling river towns and ancient mountains in a small white car looking for the perfect loaf. (Is the seed the white car or the soft shoulder of mountain and drumlin along the tilled ridge of the river?) How can we tell whether it is the seed which moves within the shaped loaf itself already stirring with the poolish of fermenting yeast? Although she tests the bread by smell and crust, it's what's within that is always found a little wanting. She looks for air and bite and perfume, sour sweet taste of wheat, an edge of chewiness, the balance between crust and cloud, bread and the baked surface of the world. He will drink coffee anywhere and at any hour, sleeping afterward like an infant sated by nursing.