virtually neon

a hot thin golden cylinder cores out my esophagus & burns its way straight down to my tailbone: i cannot sleep. i have not slept, not properly at least, in several days. won't you come over, bring a bottle of cheap white wine, & we will listen to miles davis together & talk about our mutual distances, while we are close together? there is less truth in distance....& then, relief. i will close my eyes & see this feeling as sculpting me into a living organism.

i have been cuddling with cats & thinking about how their small bodies are so succinct & contained, housing thoughts of such importance as where to nap. it helps me to slow down.

yesterday i saw so many places i had never seen before: the park above chatelet les halles, the rolling head in front of saint eustache church, the rue montorguieil, virtually neon for all of the fresh fruits behind display cases & gleaming scallops in their shells, the winding streets of etienne marcel. h came over after she finished work at her new cafe job, & we met d on the steps up the hill of montmartre at lamarck to go to a party where you could see sacre coeur from the kitchen window. i told h my secrets, & d & i talked about isms, the writer's mind, & the politics of water, all code for "this is now."