Pastis
My drink, a spoon. I do not know why it was there. I
wave it, which didn’t seem right. A prop, the play somebody forgot to
stage.
The glass tapped. Shimmering circles, limpid greens, Degas, giving up a secret.
Regardless the force applied, it always starts at the edge.
Varied rhythms. Salome, her veils, backed by a Bop quartet.
No good without your dance.
Falling, the sound of tin, the spoon kisses table.
The glass tapped. Shimmering circles, limpid greens, Degas, giving up a secret.
Regardless the force applied, it always starts at the edge.
Varied rhythms. Salome, her veils, backed by a Bop quartet.
No good without your dance.
Falling, the sound of tin, the spoon kisses table.
- Wayne H. W Wolfson 2011
Orange Action Bag (watercolor) by Wayne H. W Wolfson
To Leave
It was my last night here. She had gotten me all kinds of
things I could not take with me, to do so would have been a pain in the ass. I
think she knew this and wanted to test me.
A bunch of bottles which would surely break en route and flowers. I don’t know what she expected me to do with those, carry them cradled in one arm as if I had just won a pageant?
There was something about them which rubbed me the wrong way, despite their bright colors. This too she knew and every time she ran out to get some last minute ingredient for dinner she would return with more.
On the table a green glass vase of Jasmine. The exoticism of its perfume gave me nightmares, dying under an alien sun. Slow waves of heat rolling off of everything, having indulged in every sensualist impulse.
She kept waking me up in the middle of the night, making me roll over onto her. In the morning I was tired, which would make my trip seem quicker for being done in a half daze.
At the last minute she manages to get me angry, pulse quickening, I am now awake.
I kiss her good bye and do not say anything to ruin the moment.
One train, all the way into another country, where I will catch a plane out of Heathrow, cutting an ugly gash in the sky as I head home.
A client had been unable to pay and had settled the bill by giving me their expensive tape machine.
I liked it but soon I too would have to hawk it. After all, I needed to eat and there was always new records coming out to add to my collection. I noticed one tiny pink splotch of nail polish on the machine’s underside.
Back home I listen to the tapes we had made, sometimes sitting at a table in the zocalo. Hearing them now, after the fact I get new shades of meaning from some of the things we both had said.
Re-listening, our words and the intent behind them, how sprite like they had danced around over the course of several rounds of drinks.
Far away and removed from all that, there is the odd sensation of listening to two actors reciting lines and lies which I had written on commission.
The lies I tell myself, always stopping before the final act, leaving only one lone voice to solo.
A bunch of bottles which would surely break en route and flowers. I don’t know what she expected me to do with those, carry them cradled in one arm as if I had just won a pageant?
There was something about them which rubbed me the wrong way, despite their bright colors. This too she knew and every time she ran out to get some last minute ingredient for dinner she would return with more.
On the table a green glass vase of Jasmine. The exoticism of its perfume gave me nightmares, dying under an alien sun. Slow waves of heat rolling off of everything, having indulged in every sensualist impulse.
She kept waking me up in the middle of the night, making me roll over onto her. In the morning I was tired, which would make my trip seem quicker for being done in a half daze.
At the last minute she manages to get me angry, pulse quickening, I am now awake.
I kiss her good bye and do not say anything to ruin the moment.
One train, all the way into another country, where I will catch a plane out of Heathrow, cutting an ugly gash in the sky as I head home.
A client had been unable to pay and had settled the bill by giving me their expensive tape machine.
I liked it but soon I too would have to hawk it. After all, I needed to eat and there was always new records coming out to add to my collection. I noticed one tiny pink splotch of nail polish on the machine’s underside.
Back home I listen to the tapes we had made, sometimes sitting at a table in the zocalo. Hearing them now, after the fact I get new shades of meaning from some of the things we both had said.
Re-listening, our words and the intent behind them, how sprite like they had danced around over the course of several rounds of drinks.
Far away and removed from all that, there is the odd sensation of listening to two actors reciting lines and lies which I had written on commission.
The lies I tell myself, always stopping before the final act, leaving only one lone voice to solo.
- Wayne H. W Wolfson 2011
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