2
I’ll not get it no matter how I try. Say it was a girl in black I held open a street door for. Let it go at that. I saw a man an hour earlier I liked better much better. But it’s not so easy to pass over. Perfection’s not a thing you’ll let slip so easily. What a body! The little flattened buttocks; the quiver of the flesh under the smooth fabric! Agh, it isn’t that I want to go to bed with you. In fact what is there to say? except the mind’s a queer nereid sometimes and flesh is at least as good a gauze as words are: something of that. Something of mine—yours—hearts on sleaves? Ah zut what’s the use? It’s not that I’ve lost her again either. It’s hard to tell loss from gain anyway.
3
The words of the thing twang and twitter to the gentle rocking of a high-laced boot and the silk above that. The trick of the dance is in following now the words, allegro, now the contrary beat of the glossy leg: Reaching far over as if—But always she draws back and comes down upon the word flatfooted. For a moment we—but the boot’s costly and the play’s not mine. The pace leads off anew. Again the words break it and we both comes down flatfooted. Then—near the knee, jumps to the eyes, catching in the hair’s shadow. But the lips take the rhythm again and again we come down flatfooted. By this time boredom takes a hand and the play’s ended.
XIV.
1
The brutal Lord of All will rip us from each other—leave the one to suffer here alone. No need belief in god or hell to postulate that much. The dance: hands touching, leaves touching—eyes looking, clouds rising—lips touching, cheeks touching, arms about … Sleep. Heavy head, heavy arm, heavy dream—: Of Ymir’s flesh the earth was made and of his thoughts were all the gloomy clouds created. Oya!