Yaknow  Im not going to defend it other than saying Im circumspect about my health and Ive gathered hints  insights through it  So its fine for me   For me 

 

You

Obviously youre on your own

Im on my own

 

Of course Im on my own

  

I think youre nuts frankly   a bit disturbed

Disturbed  Disturbed

 

Youre not even going to offer me   eccentric

No  Most eccentric things  Are disturbing

And theres nothing about you thats eccentric

Ohno not now theres not a fucking thing Id share with you I dont need to get beat over the head because you feel insulted

Lemme correct you

You havent insulted me

Only you think

youve insulted me

JeezusChrist youre a testy muthafucker

Testy  I cant tell you how much that amuses me

Because on the heels of testy (he interrupted his leaning in  held up his hand  a finger pointing upward) just a moment please (he leaned back  shifted onto his heels) thank you  As I was saying

 

On testys heels usually comes the other objection tendered me  Im a belligerent muthafucker

Im testy belligerent for no other reason than asking deliberate questions

Your deliberate asking seems an assaultIts not your voice not your voice the way you say it no  No  Its your manner posture  Its almost as if youre drawing a secreted blade to use on me

Which is your perception  Not my action

Ive no straight razor   do I

he laughed uncomfortably

                                          Not that I see  But I havent frisked you either

You havent frisked me  Youre hilarious

I really think this conversation is overboard when you consider the point of departure an innocuous admission that troubles you makes you ill by its perhaps rude conjecture

You vehemently disagree

I have no disagreement with you

You dont think it  distasteful    or untoward

I dont think of it whatsoever

It is process to me Ive been doing beyond memory of first doing it 

It made sense to me when I was boy

he cleared his throat  obviously distressed

   

he had nothing to offer or suggest  but he certainly wasnt going to withdraw

Many in your immediate family growing up

No  Im an only child

That could suggest our difference

Difference

Difference yes 

 

They were fourteen in the house I grew up in five adults three generations little separate alone time slept three boys in a bed the uncles slept together the only person who had a bedroom slept alone was my grandmother if one of the kids didnt sneak in to sleep with her

Apparently knowledge conscious or unconsciously osmosis sifted through the house

I knew things I had no idea I learned

Conversations weaved around and through each other Old World tongue broken English my grandmother and an uncle were born overseas old traditions adopted modern American traditions mishmash

Out of the mishmash the privacy exclusive to the watercloset to toiletry when you were old enough to wipe your own ass without being doublechecked in that somewhere I examined what passed out of me into the toilet bowl and whether urine feces I could divine shy of haruspex my health by staring in the face what stared up at me

It didnt flinching

Why would I

A difference  Yes

Good

 

You know Stevens

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter  the listener  nothing himself  beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is

              

1503,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  2 12. 15

0004,  Thursday,  3 12. 15

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.