Town of Unspeakable Things

Then there was the time I looked directly into the face of the life I thought I was missing, of love. I used to think to be not alone meant never having to walk through the high wheat or struggle in the water. Not having to decide not to fling from some height. Once, the two of us rode one bicycle. I wore a straw hat and perched on the handlebars and beside us the sea oats swayed like skirts and I heard a trilling in the crabgrass. The sidewalks were bleached as Grecian stone as we rode past the fish shop smelling of morning— salt, bread, limes, men. Riding in front, it was such that I could not be heard always, at least not the first time for you pedaled into the wind and my hair was a ribbon in your eyes. I said I thought bougainvillea was a stoic plant and then had to say twice,no,stoic! and then no,the bougainvillea! and then you said easily it was nothing like that at all. But our future was clear enough when I asked if you saw the clean aprons of those men (how much longer you think until they clean the fish? did you see how white those aprons were? did you see?)