Tomorrow my older brother is visiting New York. He is taking a two-day legal deposition for his law firm. Frank called from his hotel and asked, “Can I take you to dinner?”
I had $5 in my pocket and over the last three weeks, Alice has been riding me, “Who paid for this?” or “Who paid for that?”
And she’s right.
Alice only earns money from her waitress gig, but she pays for breakfast and brings home food from the yogurt shop. I’m getting to hate yogurt, but beggars can’t be so picky. I only take care of the action-packed evenings, because every place lets me drink for free and Alice too.
My brother didn’t extend an invitation to Alice. She is a vegetarian. Frank and I will go to the Old Homestead on 14th Street and enjoy a bovine feast.
“I don’t know how you can eat blood-dripping meat,” Alice says before we go to bed. We’ve moved the futon into the living room. The bedroom has no air.
“At least I’m not a cannibal.” My mouth clamps on her calf. I bit higher. Not hard. Her skin is almost too soft. We make love like I am a mercenary. I can’t cum and spend myself on her belly. She’s not on any birth control.
We lay back and Alice says, “I love the way the city lights up the sky.”
We admire the dead black night. Not a star in sight. No constellations, No galaxies. Only the full moon above the alley. Man has ceased to reach for the stars. The cosmos has been obliterated by the city bright. We are earth-bound as always.
In the western desert the night is alive with distant stars.
They are our destiny.
There is no God.
We are the levelers of cities like Hiroshima, Dresden, or Tulsa.
Our victims live as running shadows against concrete walls or charred flesh or almost unscathed.
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita
NEXT YEAR ANDROMEDA
And they thought themselves Gods
Divine beings destined for the stars
Traveling in Hydrogen-fission spacecraft
On a Holy mission
To spread the Word
To the Heathen Extra-Terrestrials
The first meeting happened long ago
Hunters greeting tri-podites
They taught us life
Now we ready for the Bible-jihad
We are Gods in our minds.
More Shiva than Jesus.
Lucky to be alive.