Dear Xine

In Chagall's painting a man lies wasted after childbirth, and a different angel hovers with a hot cup of tea. Also, "Angel Serves Breakfast. Genie Brings the Divine." As you say, "Hard times? Put on the kettle." Every step with you, the Tampon Trooper, along copper-colored Rockbound Pass was one on the way to forgetting my membership in the Society for the Dull. For a moment, back in town, it seemed like the moist rubber glove in the gutter was beckoning "come hither." But after homecoming it seems our one-drink-programme in the lobby of corporate male America where we crowed over a shaved mons was that true waiting room before expulsion from a compromised Paradise: Arnold, our leader.

Masha Gutkin