We lay on our backs side by side on the mattress and although she said she would she made no move to touch me.  Understand this was something greater than sex; it was a place, or the process of going.  I looked up enlightenment in the dictionary.  I heard about the seventh chakra which can suddenly open and let light flood in.  Ginnie watched me as I read aloud.  She was small and blonde and thin.  I would with you she said.  She held my hand and I watched the tattoo of the cross on her neck wrinkle when she swallowed.  Sometimes she still dreamed of Kiki.  She said, I'm not like that anymore.

february

At the heart of Betsey there was a spark, at the heart of the woman I worked for there was a stillness, and at the heart of Ginnie there was a stillness too which might have been a caution and might have been a death. Betsey had a spark like a motor but Ginnie was part of my life before, we had gone on alone and then met up again like something parallel that has been shifted. Like the cigarettes that lay on the lawn perfectly staight an inch apart.