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Show Moon -151 We put such questions to people as if they could actually be answered. Everyone sees them as perfectly normal, and that's a good thing. If you stood outside the conventions of language and paused to think about the enormous possibilities of, say, "Why are you here?" you wouldn't be able to talk to anyone. Such sputterings of thought don't occur to him, of course. He's a banker and is not forthcoming about what this means exactly. I don't know how to ask intelligent questions about banking. I think it might be comparable to carpentry, a building up and tearing down, much measuring and much designing. I don't think the comparison would interest him. It doesn't matter. He pays me some compliments the way men do, which at forty I find myself needing. We agree to meet in my hotel lobby at six. I spend most of the day at the Central Park Zoo. Incredibly, the lions are mating right in full view on the concrete floor of their cage. It goes on for a long time. Is this a sign? If so, a sign of what? I try to shake myself from the odd trance I'm in and to be conscious of what I'm about to do. Okay. John looks sort of like James. What would it accomplish, going to bed with him? Appeasement? Release of some hidden pent-up lust? A prelude to death? Sacrifice? Rebirth? Another little joke? Across from the bears, a bag lady sits on a bench throwing bits of bread with intensity, as if this is what she was born to do. The pigeons beat around her in a rush of gray and white wings like too many memories. Words, reasons, wash away from me, bits of wood in the river. I'm aswim in pure instinct, kept afloat by nothing but trust that this is going to carry me home. Finally, I go back to my hotel, shower, dress with care, and wait for John, think maybe he'll make it easy and not show up, but he calls for me in the lobby, |