movement

it's been a while & for that i am sorry.   my life was up in the air last time i posted & i'm happy to say that things have worked themselves out for the time being.  instead of vague generalities, i'd like now to tell you all what happened to me when i went to view the apartment i mentioned last week....


it was raining that day in san francisco.  a low fog hung over market street - on the corner where i boarded a bus to the mission district.  the fog here encompasses every aspect of life & for this reason the faces & the streets & the smells & the sounds & my destination stop were all in a fog.  time was in a fog.  i don't read on buses or trains here, i observe.  i observe everything but my destination, poetic and entirely unintentional.


i found the apartment, bottle of wine under arm, after a long walk which for some reason i can't quite recall.  as i wandered i failed to notice that the san francisco fog had lifted to reveal a beautiful afternoon.  i knocked on the door, anxious to present & consume the beajoulais i had acquired.


she was beautiful.  her skin, the color of almonds.  her eyes, smoky & alive.  short hair, long-legged.  she introduced herself as jess & led me into the front room, the kitchen.  the apartment smelled like marijuana. 


'this could be my first apartment,' i thought, struck&intimidated&amazed.


& then him.  aslan - his name - sitting at the kitchen table over a cup of black coffee, a notebook - joint between his fingers & really fuckin' cool.  i didn't talk much, but i think they read youthful ignorance & excitement on my face.  they were trying to loosen me up.


first the marijuana.  then the beaujoulais.  & then something entirely different, but i'm getting ahead of myself.  


we sat around the kitchen table for a while.  jess & aslan didn't act like any couple i'd ever seen close up.  they didn't hold hands or make faces & noises at each other.  they didn't show their feelings, they felt them & moved with them.  they were like old friends, just comfortable with the changes they both underwent from minute to minute.  i didn't know who i was more attracted to.  they asked questions - first questions i knew the answers to & then questions i'd never even considered before, but haven't stopped considering since.  i found a voice in the joints & wine & conversation & comfort.  hours passed.


'it's yours.  should we celebrate?'


i'll never forget the sound of jess's voice at that moment, drifting on the surface of implications.  i was too stiff to exhibit my excitement & too stiff to refuse the piece of paper aslan placed on my tongue.


'you're skin is going to fall off,' he whispered.  or maybe yelled.


i don't remember much after this - a few bob dylan lyrics & some poetry-reading.


when i woke up the next day i was laying on the floor in an empty room, my room.  tacked to the wall, two feet from the hardwood floor, was a piece of paper with my handwriting on it.  it read:

Three (3) Haikus

five five five five five

seven seven seven, now

five five five five five

five & five & five

seven seven seven &

five & five & five

5 5 5 5 5 

7 7 7 &

5 5 5 5 5

pretty good, right?