When I Was Old and Ugly

The creature had come absurdly close to our window. It had lifted its chin—face—specifically toward mine while we were at breakfast in the country.

I’d say the animal looked and looked at me and looked, ardently.

I was reminded how to fall in love by meeting its eyes and by how long the rendezvous lasted—until doomsday, say.

I am unhappily married. Today I was dressed up in red-fox orange—orangutan orange—apricot orange, candlelight orange. I had on a wool plaid coat and had been racketing around my city precinct doing errands.

Returning home, while in the elevator of our building, facing the closed door, I combed nearly every hair—all that thinning hair along the sides of my skull.

That massive man that I didn’t know at all, who had a stiff­ness of manner at the back of the elevator, he acknowledged me. And the doorman Bill had not averted his eyes.

No, not the sort of thing that I usually report. No, that I had withdrawn the tortoiseshell comb from my purse to do the smooth­ing with and then re-stowed it on the way to 3A, our apartment.

The comb I keep in the quilted sack, where I also conceal a tiny toothpaste, the easy-to-carry traveler’s toothbrush, and my eyeglass-lens polishing cloth.

The carpet was unmarked by dirt, but one important thing in our foyer was missing—the color with the green leaves in a vase. The old floor gets better with age, but boy it needed to be cleaned up—then it will shine.

I also have affectionate and friendly wishes for the brass, crystal, silver dishes, vases and pitchers.

My conversation with my husband was as follows: “Are you all right? What do you want? You’re looking at me.”

In the park I had wanted to talk today to a bird who wasn’t interested in talking to me.

Lust and temptation are sometimes personified. I heard the bird cry—Chew! Chew! I took pains to say Chew! Chew!—loudly, too.