Deuteronomy 4:19

You spoke to me in the gaps between the walls. I could just barely smell your perfume (peach, but not real peach – that fake sugary peach they use for perfume). You pressed your finger into the gap, and I think I felt skin, but maybe it was just heat and my imagination. You called yourself Rhonda, and I introduced myself as John, but we both knew we were both lying. Who we were wasn’t important; what was important was that we were there, then, the two of us. We would never meet again; we would move on with our lives. It was just five minutes, snuck in between the moments of boredom and ennui.

I said that, and you pointed out, chuckling, that those were the same thing. You had a tremendous laugh, soft like glass wind chimes, and I wanted to kiss you then, to taste your lips and tongue. I stroked the gap again with my finger, and you whispered something I couldn’t hear. In the room beyond the gap, I could see there were others, and someone talking: A presentation, like the one I was attending and equally disinteresting.

You slipped a piece of paper in the gap: A room number. “I’m married,” I said. “So am I,” you said. Later, I’d stand in front of your door, staring at the slip of paper in my hand, and then I’d walk away. I didn’t really want to know what was beneath the peaches, after all.

(ca. 2005)