Continued...

Suzanne. What eulogies I wanted to divine, what magnificent Taj Mahal I should consecrate to her name. But this is what I sculpted in that smoky emerald city:

As I tumble into dank humiliation,
Sunk into a black hole of my own making,
I espy with my little eye,
A shape in the dark,
Wafting towards me,

I struggle with hate and pain,
A soreness residing in me,
For as long as I can remember,
Mist-clad, she billows and ebbs,
And with a flourish of her milky hand,
This unsubstantial wraith of memories,
Makes me whole…

"It doesn't exactly define soreness. Or me. I would even say it's precariously close to doggerel." So, my writing was being trampled as well. I wanted to get up and flounce off, when she said, "But it's nice. For an impromptu effort. You're not as green in your writing as you are with the greens."

"How do you know I hadn't rehearsed it as I was playing, or trying to?"

"I know. Your mind couldn't have held all these words alongside humiliation and titillation."

She smiled pacifically, and continued, "By the way, was that last word a dim reference to the holes you couldn't fill back there at the table?"

"No, it was a blatant allusion to all the holes I haven't filled for the last three months."

"Hmm. For a male, you restrain your sexual frustration quite well. I suspect this table would have risen a few inches by now if someone else had been sitting opposite me."

Aah, Suzanne. Will-o'-the-wisp. An enchanted, ungovernable fecundity. We spoke, we gathered our thoughts, and we parleyed, as they say. We played a different game across a flaky mahogany table. My cue stick was but a divining rod, she said, that had sifted her from the multitudes. She let me believe this for a moment, and then tittered at her own joke.