in this book

before I was interrupted

by a high-pitched screech that

compelled me out onto the porch of

the cabin I was visiting in the Georgia

woods where I saw a raccoon being

swiped by the swinging paw of a

mama black bear whose two large

cubs were somersaulting over a swing

and slide set in the yard?  When

mama bear spied my tall, red and

white striped Cat in the Hat hat that I

was wearing to practice for my public

library reading of that book next

week, she galumphed toward the

porch, making me dash back into the

house, slam the door, locking myself

in, then turning, breathing heavily,

to find I was not alone.

On the oriental in front of the

flagstone fireplace lay a silken-skin

odalisque, her pudenda discreetly

obscured by a vaporous scarf draped

over her voluptuous-as-a-pear thigh,

eyes averted.  This did nothing for me

as I am sometimes, as I was then, a

heterosexual female.

(Sometimes I’m omniscient.)

“So what are you doing here?” I

asked. “Lounging,” she said,

fluttering her eyelashes. “Vacuous,” I

muttered.  Then I noticed Henri

Matisse across the room painting her,

and behind him Edward Said who

said, “See what I mean?”  “Yes,” I

said, mostly to myself.  No, entirely

to myself.  All alone, I meditated for a

short while under the palm at the end

of my mind, then returned to reading

my book to escape (the no)where I

was.