081013 #dog *Go sit by him when he pats the couch. Go, enjoy your drink. Nobody's going to stop you. The air-conditioner kicks in, adding assurance to the hush. Where is the city now? It's in every sidewalk block you walked to answer this man's ad. It's in the faraway airplane lights, nonstop from nostalgia. It's in the rhythmical totality of all the traffic lights on all the corners, blinking alien intelligence into the night's thin canopy. It's in the lurid curves of every ice cube melting in your glass. It's in each whorl of your finger, magnifed, beyond the glass. It's in the smoke, it's in the smoke, it's in your mouth, your lungs, between your ears, converting your resistance with its eery, sinful innocence. Look up. He's stretching back. The hairy mountain of his chest takes on a gentler slope. Invisible, miniature mountain-climbers of disbelief breathe musky sighs.*