But just open her, out of the cold.
Unbuckle, -zip, -strap and unpack her!
Her contents are loose and strewn
things, stray things and warm things,
soft and round things - surprising
unknown things!
Be careful. She was playing through the reels of my life, divining it, rewinding it, stopping it, playing it back. Hearing the ditties, dirty stories, conversations, polemics and dead languages on my tapes, she was probably deciding to leave. Suddenly she turned the volume down, wincing. At least I knew which tape she was on: Merrill Overturf revving the engine of his '54 Zorn-Witwer. For God's sake, hurry with the poem before it's too late! But then she took the earphones off - had she reached the part where Merrill and I reminisce on our shared knowledge of the waitress in the Tiergarten Cafe?
'Let me see that poem,' she said.
All muscle and velour, she shared the puff and read it sitting up straight - jacketed, panted, booted, wrapped and occupying the bed like a large trunk you'd have to deal with before you could go to sleep. She read seriously, her lips shaping the words.
'All mush and seeds?' she read aloud, with a stern look of disgust for
the poet, in the cold room her breath smoked.
'It gets better,' I said, not at all sure that it did. 'At least, it doesn't get any worse.'
Her grace is strong. The puff was a difficult size to share; she became aware that it was, at best, a three-quarter bed. Removing her boots, she tucked her feet under her and begrudged more of the puff to me. She tore apart a stick of gum, gave me the bigger half; our mutual, wet smacking disturbed the quiet room. There wasn't enough heat in the room even to frost the windows; we had a third-floor view of the blue snow under the moon, and of the tiny lights strung out on the glacier - way off to the life-station huts where, I imagined, rough and big-lunged men were getting laid. Their windows were frosted.
Her contents are '... loose and strewn things?' she read. 'What's this strewn shit? My mind, you mean? Like scatter brained?'
'Oh, no ...'
'Stray things and warm things ...' she read.
'It's just part of the suitcase image,' I said. 'Sort of a forced metaphor.'
'Soft and round things ...' she read. 'Well, I suppose ...'
'It's a pretty bad poem,' I admitted.
'It's not that bad,' she said. 'I don't mind it.' She took off her parka, and I hunched a little closer to her, my hip to hers. 'I'm just taking off my parka,' she said.
'I was just getting more of the puff,' I said, and she smiled at me.
'It always gets so weighty,' she said.
'Puffs?'
'No, sex,' she said. 'Why does it have to be so serious? You have to start pretending I'm so special to you, and you don't really know if I am.'
'I think you are,' I said.
'Don't lie,' she said. 'Don't get serious. It isn't serious. I mean, you're not special to me at all. I'm just curious about you. But I don't want to have to pretend that I'm impressed or anything.'
'I want to sleep with you,' I said.
'Well, I know that,' she said. 'Of course you do, but I like you better when you're funny.'
'I'll be hilarious,' I said, standing up with the puff like a cape around me and walking unsteadily on the bed. 'I promise,' I said, 'to perform comic stunts and make you laugh all night!'
'You're trying too hard,' she said, grinning. So I sat down at the foot of the bed and covered myself completely in the puff.