twelve paces and turn (for love's a duel)

we stepped into the foyer, or pour le public d’un theatre, as an old french poet may have called the room with the cobwebbed trumpet and the dusty fragrance of a forgotten clown. violet knocked, waited, then opened the door. keith, the frontman, stood smiling in the door and violet introduced us. behind him stood a girl with fair skin, dark hair sliced at an angle over her eye. i took her to be keith’s girlfriend.

“this is monica.”

“pleasure,” i said.

her eyes were dark, and they questioned every secret intention.

“how’d you like the show?” she asked.

“oh, top notch,” i said.

we entered.

there were about a dozen people milling about, pouring drinks, talking music, and dreaming into their cigarettes on the porch outside, swaying with the willow across the street. violet took my hand.

“come meet ben and everybody,” she said.

i didn’t say anything, but followed.

she introduced me to ben, who i recognized as the drummer, and ben in turn introduced his boyfriend fritz, who extended his hand in a small catastrophe, which i took to be a handshake.

“how do you do?”

“beer?”

“sure.”

oscar pulled up seats for violet and i on the deck, and we talked about the show in the sweetcool night air. monica stood overlooking the scene with her long fingernails casually flicking the ash over the side, determining with each motion the future course of american style, her shirt, a man’s shirt with the cuff’s cut, sashaying to the yes rhythm of the crowd and the snakelike waves of vibration from the flat. there was talk of jukeboxes from oakland to brooklyn, raggedy dawn stories of life on the road, american existentialism spilled forth from a corner session beneath the glow of a far streetlight, which pounced on every word, crazy, like, yes!

violet asked if i wanted i drink. i said i did, and we went back into the apartment.

“now, tell me what you think?” she said.

“about what?”

“everything.”

“well, i dug the music. there were moments i felt like i was in that edward hopper masterpiece, just glitzing on the city.”

“you’re sure it wasn’t an edward hopper ripoff?”

“like in the simpsons?"

“yeah.”

and she laughed, i laughed, her eyes closed, someone passed a joint, i fell in love.

the sun began to dip through, casting a pale ardor on the potted plants.

“do you mind if i close the curtains?”

“no. please. the light’s shining in.”

we walked back outside and took seats next to oscar. it seemed strange the way violet and oscar barely spoke the entire time at the party. but that’s only a view from the outside. who can tell what kind of inviolable secret warmth festers within. when people leave so much for outsiders, doesn’t that signal a lack of inner intensity?

i walked closer to the window.

“do you mind if i close the curtains?”

"no. please. the light's shining in."

some people began leaving. the sun became sturdier. and beneath the lost clouds high above the adobe tenements, a few newspapers fluttered in the gutter, pigeons cut straight lines over the adjacent flat. it was late, and i was gone, quite gone, the me above me, watching me, watching her. time to go, saying goodbye, walking back toward violet, the swordplay between eyes, in the distance, and the newness rises -- possibilities, chemically charged, the fleeting touching of fingert-i-p-s, and the soft parting of

do you mind if i close the curtains?