I sat down to solve a bowl of Ramen noodles. The noodles were heaped, snarled, centerless. However, a knot is defined as any closed loop, disqualifying Ramen: every strand extricable makes the appearance of infinity deceptive. This is a not-knot joke. I free the noodles singly and slowly, inch by inch, without breakage: the love between bowl and tine. In ancient China the noodle was a symbol of long life. In modern Japan it is nicknamed gakusei ryori: student cuisine. (Age 24 inches).

More precisely, a knot is defined as any circle trapped in three-dimensional space: a path confused, doubling and tripling back. It wanders into its own trap, garrots itself. (Alas.) A life line, a line to live by, advances without pause, straight and singular into the world. Depend on it. (One bowl advances one hundred linear feet at 0.125 cents per foot).

I sat down to solve a bowl of Ramen noodles. The noodles were heaped, snarled, centerless. However, a knot is defined as any closed loop, disqualifying Ramen: every strand extricable makes the appearance of infinity deceptive. This is a not-knot joke. I free the noodles singly and slowly, inch by inch, without breakage: the love between bowl and tine. In ancient China the noodle was a symbol of long life. In modern Japan it is nicknamed gakusei ryori: student cuisine. (Age 24 inches).

More precisely, a knot is defined as any circle trapped in three-dimensional space: a path confused, doubling and tripling back. It wanders into its own trap, garrots itself. (Alas.) A life line, a line to live by, advances without pause, straight and singular into the world. Depend on it. (One bowl advances one hundred linear feet at 0.125 cents per foot).

Something to love even more: the Gordian puzzle that unravels to gossamer, the blot that slims to almost nothing, once confused, now no more. The sudden funnel and solution. Sudden isolation and resolve. Fat brush tip lifting until a single hair trails—a surviving capillary. Caterpillar adrift till he finds the silk trail laid by his leader. The plan that leads to the interstate. The step from pillar to tightrope.

Come to think of it: the deep clarifying urge (to bathroom, to bed).

Come to think of it: the comet, the corridor, the cannonball arc, the calling: an oboe A piercing confusion, cloud cramming tiniest aperture, pipetting out that thin, indestructible filament. The entire orchestra depending from that thread.