At your best, using the mask as an extension, a revelation of human frameworks. But I can see the creases on your scalp and denting your temples. At best, a fool in the tradition of the bard's fools. Sensitive to the follies of the others, clever on your own foibles, a mocking laugh that twists the phrase into a sing-song knife: here's the spot, excise. At best, walking the underside of their tightrope, making faces at the right-side-up world. Quick breath of subversion, the other stands to fall. Deadpan when you run my bad habits across you tongue, deadpan when you flatter shamelessly. Bated smile, perennially attentive in the wings. The siffleur calls Curtain, curtain!

Terror of the artist. Go far to go far. Particular to avoid the Taft mistake, now the Obama mistake. Choosy. Arrogant. Were you created tis way or is this the only means by which you can create. Not a character, a man.

Tea, torn nail, grey day of rain, grey day of two sweaters, grey day of soft-edged blessings. I said, among other things, je ne suis qu'une femme. It was tongue in cheek, it was true, it was a way to forgive. Rachel rolls over making empathetic animal noises and rubs my shoulder. Je mets le réveil pour sept heures, ça te dérange? I say, No. I won't let you oversleep. This is Drexel. This is his friend Agnes. I present the pointer finger and thumb of each hand for inspection. They are bared in a pinch formation. If you try to snooze, I explain, they will wake up and make Swiss cheese out of your BUTTCHEEKS!
Sign of the water bearer, ruled by Uranus.

We go to the café and MC's beautiful girlfriend read my horoscope on the splinter heavy benches outside. Our cracked ceramic teacups leak thick haloes of pungent heart-brown espressos, so strong as to be brackish. The copper machine is completely manual, clever instrument responsive to steam (He said, 'Come over if you need to let off some steam. No pressure.' I said, 'Where's there's steam there's pressure.' Over now.). Her lipstick was fuchsia, her bangs cut in the short and raw lines the French were known for in the fifties. Cat-eye glasses made of faux tortoise shell. Leather jacket. Astrology diva picking tobacco off her tongue and making a mess out of the paper. Her friend Annie is passed out on my right, with a horrible red nylon pillow full of styrofoam balls the size of pellet ammunition. MC's nails are bitten to the quick and lined in black dust from the grounds. Long lashed and crop cut, she disguises her figure in black slacks and men's shirts, but smiles like the cutesy of the playground girls. She notices that the diva has cut her bangs. You're supposed to say how beautiful it looks, the diva says. You look beautiful, MC doesn't miss a beat. And I like your bangs.

Grey day of peppermint tea and the soothing scratch of the needle across evey record in the collection. The collection, modest, someone else's. Martin breathes softly through his nose. He taps at the computer, editing films, wearing his predator t-shirt, which I love: If it bleeds, we can kill it. Ceramic dog on the window sill. Beets in our urine. The clawing feeling at the neck, where the night creeps in.