Text as Amphetamine

Noah Leznoff
From:   Why We Go To Zoos. Toronto: Insomniac Press, 1997.

After I said, "Come in"
Hal stood there looking jumpy as hell,
purple-black smudges around his eye-sockets,
nervous hands and posture, white as the moon.
It was three am.

In another incarnation he was beautiful,
a junior golfer, sun glinting from his V-neck:
Been tripping for thirty-six straight, he
told me, and his teeth swung in his mouth.

Under his arm, a pretty girl, compact, also blonde
who he introduced as "Sheila, a kindergarten
teacher." I tried to imagine her with children,
and it fit,
except for the grim reaper beside her and the fact
that it was a school night.

Morning, really.
Steve was not home because the Cubans were after him.

That afternoon I'd found a note in the kitchen:
"The Q's are after me. You don't know
where I am." Which was true.

The golfer and kindergarten teacher made
small crazy talk before
the door closed behind them.

I heard the car's slamming, the engine-gun,
a shifting to smaller and smaller noise.

Everything was quiet again; it was black outside.

I continued to read.

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Noah Leznoff's works copyright © to the author.