We were trying to figure out what a deer's home is called. A thicket? A glen? A clearing?
The train rocked and I fell into you, and the warmth of your hand righting me brushed my thigh and the spot burned. I bit my lip thinking about you touching me and I hoped you'd notice, but we kept talking about deer until the landscape changed into city.
I got off at my spot to go to someone's home that wasn't yours, and you went home to who-knows-what but it definitely wasn't me.
The sound of a different person's voice irritated me out of the fog of thinking about you, and deer, and the place on my leg where your fingers landed. While he talked I painted your face on him, a medley of your features, until he became a disjointed Picasso-fragmentation. He was an imaginary You puppet, part himself but mostly someone else. While he stayed a moving simulacrum I nodded, and nodded, and thought about the rhythm of the train.
Later that night, kept awake by the sound of a stranger's breathing, I thought about you, and deer, and if tomorrow the train would jostle me into your path again.
image: Claude Rouyer
