Re: Edges of Ballroom
Jennifer wilted for the slightest of moments. It was only the most difficult of questions, of course, and obviously Hockney was pleased with herself for asking it. A test of unending wills is what this was, a maddening descent into the abyss.
She took a deep breath, considering her answer for a moment. A compromise then, a piece of herself to the woman who might as easily gain the rest of her--were she at all inclined to consider such a prospect. It was, Jennifer knew, her only possible safety in this circumstance. The less Daryl Hockney knew, the less power she had over her. How long this game of theirs would last until the last piece had been collected and the puzzle summarily discarded, that was the real question. The one that frightened her the more she considered it.
"I promised JP I wouldn't do things this stupid," Jennifer sighed. "Fine, here's something for you then, and the student can figure it out on her own."
There was a window, just a few steps to Hockney's right. Jennifer pressed a hand to the smaller woman's back, the most considerate of touches, and moved her toward it. Leaning down, she could speak clearly, without being overheard by the people around them. She nodded out to the direction of the Seattle skyline.
"The night is only a sort of carbon paper, Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars Letting in the light, peephole after peephole --- A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things. Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.
Over and over the old, granular movie Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams, Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful, A garden of buggy rose that made him cry. His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks. Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.
He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue --- How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening! Those sugary planets whose influence won for him A life baptized in no-life for a while, And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby. Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods. Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.
His head is a little interior of grey mirrors. Each gesture flees immediately down an alley Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance Drains like water out the hole at the far end. He lives without privacy in a lidless room, The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.
Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments. Already he can feel daylight, his white disease, Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions. The city is a map of cheerful twitters now, And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank, Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed."