Circus (23 page)

Thank you.

The epigraph is quoted from the e. e. cummings play
Him
(New York: Boni and Liveright, 1927).

John Keats’s “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” is quoted from
Major Works
, ed. Elizabeth Cook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

The guide to the northern lights used by Edward in “The Collective Name for Ninjas” is Neil Davis’s
The Aurora Watcher’s Handbook
(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1992). The article on the “Little Bang” parenting theory to which Jess refers is “Little Bang Parenting Theory: It All Begins with a Toy Gun” by Monica Hesse in the
Washington Post
(Saturday, November 11, 2007).

“Circus” first appeared in a slightly different form in
enRoute Magazine
in 2008.

The Latin in “Brothers” is quoted from Horace,
Ode
1.9.5–8.
Q. Horati Flacci Opera
, ed. F. Klingner (Leipzig: Teubner, 1959).

I have taken some liberties with the particulars of luge life and have added a fictional Canadian team to the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in “Two-Man Luge: A Love Story.” Aerodynamic booties really exist, though.

The phrase “quite everydaylooking” appears in James Joyce’s
Finnegan’s Wake
, ed. Jeri Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).