UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LINKS
From: Why We Go To Zoos. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 1997.
After I said, "Come in"
Hal stood there looking jumpy as hell,
purple-black smudges around his eye-sockets,
nervous hands and posture, white as the moon.
It was three am.
In another incarnation he was beautiful,
a junior golfer, sun glinting from his V-neck:
Been tripping for thirty-six straight, he
told me, and his teeth swung in his mouth.
Under his arm, a pretty girl, compact, also blonde
who he introduced as "Sheila, a kindergarten
teacher." I tried to imagine her with children,
and it fit,
except for the grim reaper beside her and the fact
that it was a school night.
Steve was not home because the Cubans were after him.
That afternoon I'd found a note in the kitchen:
"The Q's are after me. You don't know
where I am." Which was true.
The golfer and kindergarten teacher made
small crazy talk before
the door closed behind them.
I heard the car's slamming, the engine-gun,
a shifting to smaller and smaller noise.
Everything was quiet again; it was black outside.
I continued to read.
Noah Leznoff's works copyright © to the author.