Their asses swayed back and forth
in front of me on the dimly lit sidewalk.
Both girls were a few inches shorter than me
and quite a bit paler, though I never did
see their faces. They walked arm-in-arm
possibly lesbians; probably so, in fact--
sometimes I feel like us red-blooded
heterosexuals are the minority in this city.
One of them had a black hooded sweatshirt
and bleached streaks in her dark hair.
The other, the taller of the two, wore
a pink sweater that didn't quite cover
her orange undershirt. I like when that happens.
We all do, us red-blooded heterosexuals.
My shins were killing me from all of the
flat-footed pavement-pounding I'd been doing.
I'd just dropped her lunch off at the hospital
and was heading back to her apartment
in the hope that the key she'd made me would work
this time. I needed something to focus
my blurred vision on, something to follow
in order to make it those twenty blocks back to the apartment.
It wasn't personal, wasn't sexual; just something to follow
to latch onto, like a set of red tail lights on a tired drive home.
I could smell the rich sauces in the Chinese food cartons
that Bleached Hair was carrying in a white plastic bag.
The familiar aroma made me feel comfortable in
an otherwise unfamiliar place. Then I caught a whiff
of the perfume that one of them was wearing.
Something in my motivation changed.
I banged a left at the next intersection, crossed
before the red hand disappeared, almost got clipped
by a delivery boy on a bicycle who cursed at me in Spanish.
I'd have to find a new guide home. The asses weren't so harmless
anymore and my lazy eye couldn't carry the guilt.
Everyone loses in a city made of sidewalks.
Don't mind my noticing;
blame it on the low blood sugar.
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