At the Dorm

Week upon week at the dorm she watched him working at a table with a pencil in his teeth, eating with a stack of books and papers, reading while he walked. His hair was groups of angry men, his sweaty cuffs were wrinkled at his forearms: he seemed to be loved by no one. But always there were pairs of houseflies hovering above him, landing on his nest of notes, trailing him as if with streamers and sound. A farm girl, she knew to follow the flies: they'll take you to the milk just pulled to the pail, to the cow's haunch where the meat will one day be sweetest, the swelled pond, the unlatched gate. Everything, she knew, was in those notebooks he would carry: her future, the distances of islands, poles and stars, the reason for the network of men's follies, how to spend the night.