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A Loan
William Gibson
Alone is not like a loan,
the passing of time & the accumulation of interest & the repayment.
What would I repay to you.
The lights in the
park were not quite enough
to keep the darkness from reaching inside my coat & it was not a warm
darkness tonight like
the warm darkness of bed & making love.
It was not even
the warm darkness
of summer & the
long look out over the water of the bay. The hunting
for the waves out there, the stars not moving in the wind.
It was not the darkness
when you close your eyes
standing in the shower letting the hot water
steal your body
starting with your neck
your shoulders
& your back
the smell of the soap
reminding you that
you are not in Tahiti or the Caribbean & how the cold
will greet you when
you step out into the bathroom
steamed mirror allowing
you privacy
from your own eyes.
It was not the darkness
of the movie theatre & the passage
of popcorn & the willing suspension of disbelief like a long bridge
hanging
between today &
tomorrow
collapsing only in a sudden dream where you walk
through a room & I cannot follow & then the host of other characters
come up to me.
Whose faces, so
detailed, talk to
me & I cannot
hear & I have no
idea who they are.
Their precise features.
Where are the
rooms & the
houses & the swimming
pools & rivers
the garden that
I walk up to
in my dreams.
They are so
real & I have
never seen them
before. & why
do my mother
& father come
to my dreams
every now &
then. She still
walking not in
her wheel chair.
he old but not
ill. They come to
see me
but don't say
much, the moment
shorter than a
commercial from
the after life. Makes
me wonder how
often I was in their
dreams when they
were alive, another
thing we never
talked about.
I tell you all this
over a phone line
as if I were talking
out loud
to myself
to the dogs
to the cats
to the mirror
I have removed my glasses so I can hear
you listen.
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