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.