A course never quite looks the same way twice.
The combinations of weather, season, light, feelings and thoughts that you find there are ever-changing. – Joe Henderson
Eleven
In the morning.
A sizzling, steamy Sunday
in a scorching summer.
Hot. Humid. Hot. Humid.
Real hot. Real humid.
I walk into the house
after a ten-mile run.
I’m all sweaty,
dripping on the hardwood floors.
I hear my girlfriend on the phone
with one of her confidantes.
These are really attractive women.
Gorgeous really.
Both in their early forties.
Both feminists.
I strip
out of my wet clothes.
My girlfriend
throws her head back,
laughs into the phone.
And then she says,
“String him along.
Meanwhile,
you’ll get your brains humped out,
which is all you’re really looking for.”
I get a tall beer out of the refrigerator.
“Cheat all you want,” my girlfriend advises.
She jumps to her feet
and starts waving her empty hand
in the air
like a preacher on television.
“What he doesn’t know
won’t hurt him.”
I go take a cold shower.
Real cold. Frigid.