I Live In A World Where Two

After Telling The Hard Facts To Anyone From Lover To Friend, I Have Changed In Their Eyes. Often It Is Awe Or Admiration, Sometimes It Is Repulsion, Once Or Twice It Has Been Fury Hurled Directly At Me For Reasons I Remain Unsure Of.

Everyday He Got Up. Before Sleep Wore Off, He Was Who He Used To Be. Then, As His Consciousness Woke, It Was As If Poison Seeped In. At First He Couldn't Even Get Up. He Lay There Under A Heavy Weight. But Then Only Movment Could Save Him, And He Moved And He Moved And He Moved, No Movement Being Enough To Make Up For It. The Guilt On Him, The Hand Of God Pressing Down On Him, Saying, You Were Not There When Your Daughter Needed You.

I Was In The Air Around Him. I Was In The Cold Mornings He Had Now. I Was In The Quiet Time He Spent Alone. I Was The Girl He Had Chosen To Kiss. He Wanted, Somehow To Set Me Free. -susie Salmon

She Didn't Even Have To Smile, And She Rarely Did Outside Her House--it Was The Eyes, Her Dancer's Carriage, The Way She Seemed To Deliberate Over The Smallest Movement Of Her Body.

No One On The Street Thought Anything Of The Downtown Girl Dressed In Black Who Had Paused In The Middle Of Midtown Foot Traffic. In Her Art Student Camouflage She Could Walk The Entire Length Of Manhattan And, If Not Blend In, Be Classified And Therefore Ignored.