#85

And on the seventh day... Turn from causal to casual. Take a rest. Margreta says, by way of example: "The human form looks dignified and serious if it is erect." That's what I note, February's National Geographic hidden under spirals. I've been listening to Boulez. Balance too, but that is death. My dissertation's afterward: "Teenage Lighting" or maybe epigram. Perhaps I'll take a bath.

Butcher-shop sign at 7th and Dickenson: KOSHER AND GENTILE KILLING. Green package from the post. Sarah. Gold Chinese box, the fabric shining crimson when tilted under light. Inside is a dish of red ink. Rouge? No, a stamping pad; with dragon-topped marble column aside: GREG. Stamp-worthy? Stephen at the store is undercharged: fifteen comic books for 26.47 (and he has twenty two-cent stamps in the inside pocket of his jacket). He means to read them, or to use them later.

Gypsy cold care. Rows of tables manned by an Asian family. Green-flecked lemons, jewelled cherries, shameful peaches with torn leaves. I have four dollars - no, three in my pocket. Coffee (but does it stain?). Make this a studious day. Adolescent Histories. Came up with that. Or revision: feminine writing without the father. In my lecture book, I wrote: "Stalling devices / stalling de-vices / walling devices." My voice a little rough from the winter weather. Rain.

A sudden shift of style. Reasons? Admonitions, possibly. Cage's quick retort. Or the fact of Vicki's leaving - so much in repetition now, it sounds a sound I can hear. My parents taught me that, and someday I'll be grateful. Home in on silence. Or the word that all men know. I think that's how Joyce put it. But what is that word's timbre? David said it, in confusion. And I hear con (Italian for "with"); I hear "fusion." The tenor of that, my throat will catch it too. God, what language can do when it tries.

And Azazel, the best of teraphim, with me loyal and familiar.