Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Reform

What chance reform?

A towel hangs from a locker, shorts on a chair, and the man in between’s not hurrying to either. Speaks Portuguese to his pal on the other side of me.

I’m going to count to 100 and not look once.

97, 98, 99, 100. He’s still perfectly naked. (It’s true, I was probably counting fast.)

Imagination did not exaggerate: the man’s beautiful as falling backwards off a ladder.

That’s all. (There’s a theme to all these stories: nothing happens.)

Three weeks later, I still have not fully recovered. A hole his precise delirious shape appears in my man-cratered mind. When it rains at night his form returns.

It’s a dark planet, certainly. Fresh standing water: no one to drink it.

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