“Ivanka, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. I-van-ka: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. I. Van. Ka. She was Iv, plain Iv, in the morning, standing five feet ten in one sock. She was Ivvie in slacks. She was 'Vanka at school. She was Mrs. Kushner on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Ivanka. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Ivanka at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Ivanka was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a fraudster for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”