he touches is seared. The heat spreads, a fever o f discontent.
The men are fevered, an epidemic o f fury; they are hot but
they can’t burn. H e’s dying in front o f them, torched, and I’m
smashed up on him, whole, arms up and outstretched, on
him, flat up against the flames, indestructible. The whore’s
killing him; she’s a whore and she’s killing you. He can’t stay
away but he tries. He enumerates for me m y lovers. He misses
some but I am discreet. He breaks down because I am not
pregnant yet. I show him m y birth control pills, which he has
never seen; I explain that I w on’t be getting pregnant. He
disappears for a day, two days, then suddenly he is in front o f
me, on his knees, his smile stopping m y heart, he stoops with a
dancer’s swift grace, there is a gift in his hands but his hands
don’t touch mine, he drops the gift and I catch it and he is
gone, I catch it before it hits the ground and when I look up he
is gone, I could have dreamed it but I have the flowers or the
bread or the book or the red-painted Easter egg or the
drawing. H e’s gone and time takes his place, a knife slicing me
into pieces; each second is a long, slow cut. Tim e can slow
down so you can’t outlast it. It can have a minute longer than
your life. Tim e can stand still and you can feel yourself dying
in it but you can’t make it go faster and you can’t die any faster
and if it doesn’t m ove you will never die at all and it w o n ’t
move; you are caved in underground with time collapsed in on
top o f you. T im e’s the cruelest lover yo u ’ll ever have,
merciless and thorough, wrapping itself right around your
heart and choking it and never stopping because time is never
over. Tim e turns your bed into a grave and you can’t breathe
because time pushes down on your heart to kill it. Tim e crawls
with its legs spread out all over you. It’s everywhere, a
noxious poison, it’s vapor and gas and air, it seeps, it spreads,
you can’t run aw ay somewhere so it w o n ’t hurt you, it’s there
before you are, waiting. H e’s gone and he’s left time behind to
punish you; but why? W hy isn’t he here yet; or now ; or now;
or now; and not one second has passed yet. He doesn’t want to
burn; but why? Why should he want less, to be less, to feel
less, to know less; w hy shouldn’t he push him self as far as he
can go; w hy shouldn’t he burn until he dies? I have a certain
ruthless objectivity not uncommon among those who live
inside the senses; I love him without restraint, without limit,
without respect to consequences, for me or for him; I am not
sentimental; I want him; this is not dopey, stupid, sentimental
love; nostalgia and lingering romance; this is it; all; everything. I don’t care about his small stupid social life among stupid, mediocre men— I know him, self-im molating,
torched, in me. His phony friends embarrass him, the men all
around on the streets playing cards and drinking and gossiping, the stupid men who lust for how much he feels, can’t imagine anything other than manipulating tourists into bed so
