Johnny Nine pressed his hand to the bulkhead again. "Yes, I guess maybe I do. In a way."
"Of course you do! You've just got to. You can't help it! Put your cheek close against the bulkhead and you can almost feel the wind blowing on your face. I can. And if I try hard enough, I can almost smell the fields of flowers all in bloom and hear birds singing, like they were singing from far away.... And I can—"
"You've been reading again," he interrupted with a smile.
"Uh-huh," she said dreamily. "I have.... And when I finished, I came down here, and I thought about it, and I hoped you'd come so we could talk. It was poetry; it was—beautiful....
"You know, Johnny, I'd like to write poetry. If I had the sky and the birds and the rivers and the mountains all to write about."
After a moment, Johnny Nine said, "Go ahead, tell me what the poems were about."
They envisioned themselves running hand in hand, with the wind whispering gently....