Our DSL connection just sprang to life after being comatose for 12 hours, which accounts for this tardy letter. Meanwhile, I spent my disconnected morning changing a comma to a colon and a two-syllable word to a one-syllable word, reminding myself that The Years might be my favorite Virginia Woolf novel, making Earl Grey tea for a boy with a sore throat, ditching my car at the garage for an oil change, and trying to figure out if the towels in the dryer are dry and cold or wet and cold.

But now that I have returned to you, I can continue the Sidney poem I started yesterday. Here are the first two quatrains:

My true love hath my heart, and I have his,

By just exchange, one for the other giv'n.

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss:

There never was a better bargain driv'n.

His heart in me, keeps me and him in one,

My heart in him, his thoughts and senses guides.

He loves my heart, for once it was his own:

I cherish his, because in me it bides.

Tomorrow I'll add the final quatrain and couplet. For now, you and I can both wallow in the sinking sensation that "perfect love" equals "perfect business deal." How poetic.