When they say, “that ciabatta you baked has a nice open crumb.” I like when people reduce an assemblage of atoms down to its most basic form. Like when a skyscraper is just spire. Or an airplane is just tray table in its upright and locked position. At home I call my dog tongue and my refrigerator freon cooling tube. This idiosyncratic enthusiasm started in middle school where I was first linguistically distilled to the tiniest synecdoche. In high school that process became physical. A girl once refined me into a thumb and stuck me in a platinum locket looped around her neck. This was what we called getting to third base. Third base is baseball in its purified form. The nexus of accomplishment and anticipation. A whole stadium stomping their toes. A batter stroking his well-hewn ego. The pitcher probing for the perfect raised seam.