leaning with my shoulder up against the doorpost, i sucked down air. the cigarette was tasteless, had become a ghost like myself. i watched my body fucking without impatience. always in the doorways, always with the shadow cut across my face so just my lower jaw was visible, and the cigarette..  always the bland stale smack of the cigarette between my teeth.

 

this garullity of my body no longer offends me. there is space only for one on the ride and i'm always a gentleman. c'est la vie. im never around when they come, i leave the seat up and the door open,

that man, who has the decency to wait until i've left the room, that man who i have never clapped eyes on, who is visible to me only as a line of shadow under the door.. comes into my head when i retire to my doorpost, slots behind my face.. enjoy it mon frere,

 

i want this vehicle only for driving, the slow shifts into gear on a long open road. all the rest of it seems distracting anyhow. little moments of passion throw off my cocentration. in any decent aircraft you need one man to fly and one to drop the bombs. these are demands that war makes of us.

 

ii

 

each day the temptation grows to leave this place, to find a dazzling blue ocean  where the summer is forever and the sea parted only by a few fisherman throwing out the glittering cloud of their nets.. but i worry about my house, my human vessel, which will fall quickly into a state of disrepair. do not think that i hate that body that we are watching, that ermine body that lies with its feet up on the armrest of the old couch, chewing an apple like cud, that rumine one stomached grass muncher.. on the contrary, i am quite fond of it.. i should hate to see it run to seed without my invigorating presence. left to its own devices, debauchery is inevitable.