XVI
|
IN POOR TASTE
Think about it constantly. For instance, while they are plucking the glass from their eyeballs, or leaving an uninvited trail: chrysanthemums; discharge; weathered sheet music (Maple Leaf Rag); table legs; follicles of various densities widowed from their host; secret envelopes (the thick, creamy kind); hard-boiled eggs; windowsills damp with perspiration; intuition; stove- top cleaner; tortoise shells; particular firmness, as though a decision has been made without you. While they are eating beef jerky, or refusing to eat bread. While one or both of you is dying. While an invaluable item is misplaced. While one or both of you is coming. While refusing to inhale from a cigar. While a beautiful woman spits in the mouth of a stranger, whether for insult or pleasure is negligible. While they film it. While they are trying on another blue sweater. While they are buying the blue sweater they had previously tried on. While in the last subway car, examining a photo of a pet you do not recognize. While remaining clandestine. While wondering contemptuously if you will ever meet their mother. While wondering if, were you to meet their mother, you would be their partner, or a friend, or no one at all, and if she would pass away holding this knowledge, which would then become suspended in time, an infinite caveat in the memories of a woman whose voice you have never heard. She used to be a dancer. While they are choking you. While on drugs. While tuna salad is being delicately smoothed over a slice of toasted marble rye. While learning to compromise. |