Amerigo Vespucci   The naming rights, it turns out, never seem to go to the noblest, the first, the most meritorious — not when we’re naming dreams and planting our flags, appeasing the ghosts of what we fear. Who doesn’t love a con man? He said he’d been there — four times! He told the best story — we loved it! On maps drawn from memory we saw dragons and gold, spices, condos glimmering in the sun — such easy terms, such beaches! And what really got us was the girls — so young, so free, so naked, so unencumbered by shame or by God. They’re not like us. We aren’t stealing it, we’re making it — this chance to be something, to start with nothing but a name.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont December 2013