Intimacy Gradient

Dina calls from Chicago, still teaching art at inner-city high schools; then another call from the past, a high school sweetheart who found me online and wondered if I was him. Yes, of course I remember. She had a mole, I told her, off-center between her breasts. She was amazed I was still alive, remembering our senior year. She remembered how I had disappeared, off with the circus (theater, at any rate) and didn't even attend graduation. She mentioned some people, I remembered a few of them. I told her that, yes, she was welcome to visit, but she'd have to get a room in town and bring her own flea powder. How different our lives are, and how events shape them. What we take for granted. Two conversations in one night and I feel shell-shocked, staring off into the middle distance:

Up close, middle ground,
with egrets stabbing minnows.
Watching the sun set.

I remember conversations with Harvey, before he killed himself. We would spend a long evening splitting hairs. He was fundamentally Jewish and I never did understand that, a belief system, after all. Probably bullshit, but I think I remember the last time, other than weddings and funerals, that I attended church. A Congregational thing in Florida, and I had actually passed up a chance to go fishing, so I almost understand. I can't get why wearing a head-scarf or a skull-cap would be any reason for cutting off your head. I can believe in oysters, I can believe in fiddle-head ferns, I have much more difficulty believing in imaginary text. Most of us are really stupid, subscribe to different channels, whatever, I hear the Harry Potter thing is big. I hear a fucking Whip-O-Will. I fully intend to stand my ground. None of this makes any sense. A passing fancy, not quite a frolic, one of those Sunday afternoons with iced tea and fried chicken.