Twenty-Two

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.