and it all went tremola

Jones probably is figuring that I am fixating on something again, and when he puts his arms around me, I can’t respond, even though my t-shirt is how I like it – paper thin.

In the morning, when I get to my mail, there are some guy friends of mine who believe in their continuous search for the new.

I avoid Jones when I’m not sure what’s going on. This is probably not good but it’s my last trip to Ottawa. I go to see my friend Clayton for the weekend. He lives in this place called the Glebe. Yeah, and like it sounds, he and his friends’ve ended up stuck to each other like the white rice they’ve been eating for the past four years.

I walk in and it’s a house instead of an apartment, and there are about eight people in the kitchen just talking pretty much and most of them are jokers. When Clayton offers me tea, there’s this plastic container with some magic maker writing on it pushed my way. It reads BROWN SHUGAH.

When I take off the lid, it’s filled with rice. White rice I’m scared they’ll throw on me if I mention the word Jones.

Leah hooks Clayton’s arm to go have it out for the fifth time that night on the front porch because she knows he won’t write.

They have a porch – the kind you want to sit around and flick things at that leaves and wait for your friends to come over . . .

Leah’s cut a square of linoleum off the kitchen floor and we’re all signing it. One of the guys gets up every once in awhile to go into the living room, making mixed tapes for a few people before they take off to various parts. Clayton asking, Is it a hurting song?

There are tickets to old bedrooms that are either chicken yellow or pink frilled.

Someone opens the back door not knowing. The whole back is pitted. Construction in a black sky.

All our eyes, stars instantly cast out there.

º º º

That last night they take me for a walk. It’s sticky. Everyone going into his or her own wounds. As soon as we slow down, we get screamed at.

Are you visiting someone? Are you looking for someone (Yeah, we’re looking for God.) Well, if you’re not looking for someone, I’m going to have to ask you to leave because you’re loitering and we have a policy against loitering. (We’ll just be a minute.) WELL, you’ll have to deliberate somewhere else because this is private property. You’re going to have to leave. Leave now.

I thought Clayton was going to say something hurting at the Greyhound station like I’ll write, meaning he wouldn’t but he said, What is this, be gone or be crushed?