Song: “Little Red Corvette,” Prince

Poem: “Another April, Too Cruel” by José Mármol (tr. Eileen O’Connor)

I landed in L.A. after midnight, collected my carry-on that had been gate-checked due to the small overhead bins on the CRJ-700 at the regional airport, and took the shuttle to the rental car place. After bumping around on that shuttle for more than a few minutes with a handful of other weary travelers—an older couple, a trio of men in fishing hats, a young man wearing over-ear headphones hunc...