XVI. Detail as a Reticent Event
The husband had a friend named Ray whom he loved greatly.
Ray was troubled in mind but valiant.
When Ray came to the house the wife stayed in her room.
He’s out of control she said.
Ray sat in the kitchen with the husband and a bottle of wine.
Talked about his “mysteries.”
Tricking every night is a sign of despair
was a comment of the wife’s next day at breakfast.
Ray had just left.
The husband spread his hands as if to say
Gently now.
Ray had a voice like a botched tango,
women as well as boys liked to listen to it.
And because Ray was a person
who soon enough got to know everybody
Ray soon enough got to know
Dolor and Merced.
He had some ideas about what was going on there that he kept to himself.
To the husband he said
Double your fun.
Ray liked idioms.
One night late
he came to the house looking for the husband.
The wife was in her study in the attic
with all the lights on down below.
Got your house lit up like a Roman nougat!
Ray calls out from the stairs.
She looks up from her work, deep
in the pleasure of it as he can see, something about her
blinds him.
He’s out she says.
Together
they watch stray drops of this fact condense on the air between them.
Some call it love
but those two whose souls knit at that moment
as the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David
did not love one another.
How much simpler that would have been.