Abigail Deutsch

Moissac, France I walked to the baker’s and thought about the bread. And at the corner store the butter. Four kinds of butter! I bought them in order of saltiness. I studied slang in secret. I said little. And my students were so beautiful I couldn’t teach a thing. Instead I made them sing. Twenty-two. Nothing to do. New York had vanished, Connecticut, too. My students grew hair and got haircuts, grew hair and got haircuts, and sang. I’d lie in bed and masturbate and wonder why I’d come, and come and come again and then rise for some bread and a run. Does the village persist? It must. Right now, someone hums “Nowhere Man” and thinks of that shy teacher from — Manhattan? New Orleans? Bel Air? And she brushes her lengthening hair.

New York City, 2001 One night, not long after the disaster, as our train was passing Astor, the car door opened with a shudder and a girl came flying down the aisle, hair that looked to be all feathers and a half-moon smile making open air of our small car. The crowd ignored her or they muttered “Hey, excuse me” as they passed her when the train had paused at Rector. The specter crowed “Excuse me,” swiftly turned, and ran back up the corridor, then stopped for me. We dove under the river. She took my head between her fingers, squeezing till the birds began to stir. And then from out my eyes and ears a flock came forth — I couldn’t think or hear or breathe or see within that feather-world so silently I thanked her. Such things were common after the disaster.