#105

Jeehyun - in black, blue, red - says, "Sandals, sometimes." And then: "I can't imagine you." The light in lines along the river. Streetsongs in code or in capital. Scott sits back upon a bench. A long, hot spring and summer for the midpoint of shelving duties. Tell him, "The schoolmen were schoolboys first." You have cut them off. Revision.

Or there's Corey, cross and cap. Ram me, damn me, brother! Thy will be done. But his father: holy, large and blank, sublime. A speech that would make Rudolf Steiner proud. This is the point of connection. First day, there's a call: it's the foul fiend Flibbertigibitt. And cheeses! square resolve, neither absence nor imposture. For if God be all things, then he is sin and wickedness too; and if God be all things, then he is streetcar, tree, tobacco-pipe; he is me, and I am him, just as my mother's said.

#104

I am, as Stephen, haughty. From the office couch to the breakfast table, I am all that I need to be. The windows mark my time with rain; the streets, they map my space in breezes. I am, in terms of theory, rising. Today, it's Merleau-Ponty. A luring hierophant tomorrow.

There are words. Redolence, lubricious. "How are you doing?" - to Square. "Fair to midland" - response. But Alex, we call her Alexia. She is, with her cough, pneumatic. Hkarff! Urrrrkhr... On Day 6: Bloom's cat is named Leo. His story - well, it's circumscribed. And I'm my work's exergue.

But name's? There is: Andy, Jeehyun, Adrian, Vicki, Will, David, JMR, Sean, Brandon, Sarah, Stefan, Emilia, Benjy, Jack, Elaine, Brandon, Matt, Julie, Corey, Erica, Blake, John. -And what might your name be?

#103

Stephen's genes: his mother's well-bred hands which held him and held books open as he slept, his youth by his mother's mother led inside of resonant New York lobbies. A picture that his grandfather showed: a troop of men unclad round a bathing-hole in Deutschland, their guns in single file near the picture's fore.

Oh, would that we were poor again, young again, and free. I remember (he remembers) that day - our first - of kindergarten. The walls with letters dressed as men; and at each square table blue, and red, and emerald blocks. Corey had his "aint's," his "we's," his dirty mop of hair - and knees impatient to move. And I, effete, a stillness, empty head and opened eye - I longed to read aloud for all assembled there. In a corner together in gym class, we crouched as games of dodge ball, kick ball, football played upon the schoolyard's fenced-in concrete.

But he was anxious, elsewhere, to run, to shout or duck, to point or to turn. Eager, we were, for something, but of different pedigrees. My gaze searched in each crowd for his: at the clamor of recess or those restless gatherings of classes on the creaky gymnasium bleachers. I caught it always darting, watching or fearing for someone's entrance, overdue. And then at my side he'd sit with his knees to his chest, he'd say "darn" or say "jesus" and laugh.

When Stephen walks with friends to Bob and Barbara's, he is there (perhaps) bent over a beer at the bar. Twenty years later, and how will we find him? A stubbled upper lip, handsome face with - already - weary eyes. Stephen cannot hold his gaze for long. It is not a mirror, not an invitation, nor might it neither be a question, if a question imples an answer, ready for it, waiting.

#102

Gamesome, but not Stevie, who's prone to scrag much merriment. Grimacing at the sun. Competing with the weather. Hands in pockets, eyes forward or down, and ears (traced by short dark hair) that're ruthlessly hard of hearing. I'm too hard on him, I know. A finer specimen than most he is. Idealistic, in whichever ideals he deals. And a will, tumescent and bent on images transcendent.

In this midden of a city, we're two muffins in a rag. I maunder, he marches. I lilt, he rises. Riddled in rhyme and subtle in spirit. A clumsy apostle I am to our town's false prophet. But what would he see in the solitude of his namesake's artistic economy? For I am capital, the world, and all that grows its own revleation. I am sound and character, italic and obscure. His seven days are my Seven Sundays, and his ardent route my departure. Non enim excursus hic ejus, sed opus ipsum est. For it is better that the whole world be destroyed and all perish utterly than that a free man should refrain from a single act to which his author moves him.

#101

It was a novel day. The son of Bolinbroke entered as Stephen (the flower of youth and all that) while Jack leered and leched from his post at the bar. All this from a bench in Rittenhouse - on which I was joined by two men in business attire. "Beautiful day," the one closest offered, the tiny creases at the corner of his eyes burrowing deeper as he smiled. Afterwards, I bought not briefen but briefs: white with a watermelon-colored waist, and red with a band of white.

At the gym, my legs strained in sharp pyramids. There were men. Call them Tom, call them Dick. Call them Harry. Not a woman to be seen. But my reflection (like a dark Narcissus) in every glass storefront from 5th to 7th. It's a lush, verdant weekday. Everything's deserving of kisses.

My body, I wrote some time ago here, abridges its praises. Never too much to stomach, but too little to have on my chest. I wear socks, I wear t-shirts. Hands sometimes come from unexpected places to correct my form. And what is heart rises and beats, but not to the rhythms I would have it. Difference, distance, translation: I need correspondence.

#100

Babble on. The 100th entry. Amidst situps and comic books, grocery stores and history books. Mostly noise and dross all this, but a story underneath that grows. And I waver, and I turn: from Stephen to Square and back again. Joyce and Jenkinson, my Scylla and Charybdis.

At the gym, Pete comes to where I strain with seated curls, says, "Keep your shoulders down," and pushes gently. Afterwards, it's the post office, then a phone call to my dentist. It's spring break - but not yet spring. The sun masquerades in hasty smears of yellow, and my students are strewn on beaches or beds afar. I read a play, or reorganize the filing cabinet. I flip through a magazine, masturbate while lying on the couch.

Time passes. The stereo plays. Right now it's OMD: "Of All the Things We've Made." I write, and my voice here hovers in the declarative, the personal pose. An illusion of nakedness. Be wary. I think of Will, pressing his body against Jean. Or Luke, in tanktop, asking Erica out to dance. David's a mirror. Adrian's a mirror too. This story, The Work of Art, a labyrinth of reflecting glass. And the minotaur at it's center, love.