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bird, I felt at that moment helpless and naked in the face of a world whose haphazardness is difficult to comprehend; and then, thoughts being what they are, uncontrollable and yet connected, I thought of you and of our two days in Rochester. Was it only two? No. It was an eternity, an instant, or both. As I wrote in a poem once: “How we do writhe to the tricks of time.” (Or maybe it was “in the clinch of time.” I forget.) With such thoughts in mind, I have rushed home to pen this letter.
    Seated at my desk I gaze out the window to where a mighty elm once stood that stands no more. It was but yesterday, as the saying goes. Like us, like our “affair,” it was sawed off at the knees. I stare out, pensive, and let the reel of time unspool, while I relive in memory frame by frame our two days of passion in that rumpled nest of damp sheets and pillows. Two fabulous days … and then? And then I went back to mine, and you to yours. But
why
?
    I wonder, Anita, whether like me you sometimes ask yourself that. Was it really just a feeling of obligation toward those others to whom we had once made a careless promise? I know we wanted to believe it was that. I remember how, waiting at the airport for the departure of our separate planes, we spoke of “poor Jolie” and “poor Rick” and we felt self-sacrificing and noble and sorry for ourselves. Our lips touched for the last time, momentarily and roughly, for we were standing in the boarding gate and people were shoving and pushing to get past. Crossing the tarmac to my plane I glanced back and saw a row of faces looking out from the terminal, noses and lips grotesquely flattened against the glass. Which one was yours? I didn’t know, so I blew kisses to them all.
    How different it all looks in retrospect. Now I see not much nobility and a good deal of cowardice. We turned aside from a torrent that, had we launched our frail craft upon it, might have carried us who knows where—into a whirlpool perhaps, or, equally perhaps, to a small island with a coconut tree! We chose instead to continue paddling in the quiet pools of domesticity, though we knew in our hearts that those pools were already congealing to stagnant fens! I discovered that soon enough in the crudest and most painful manner, and I have just received news through Stephanie M. that you fared no better. We thought of
them
, but did they ever think of
us
? If it is any comfort to you, let me say that I have always considered Rick to be a perfect asshole, as does everyone else who knows him.
    Anita, so much water has passed under so many bridges that I fear we’ve let happiness slip from our grasp. Eight turbulent years, and the image of you in my mind is as untarnished as if minted yesterday. I can still see you as you were on our last night together, seated on the edge of the bed in that dingy cement-block motel on the outskirts of Rochester. A huge neon sign flashing just outside the window is casting the room in alternating tints of garish green and red. Your head is lowered, your breasts bare, your damp hair falls in a dark curtain across your face. In the changing half-light you are looking down at a large menu lying open on your knees. Now the camera zooms out, and I am in the picture as well. I am leaning against a dresser, my elbow resting on a stack of empty pizza boxes. I am wearing just my trousers, a pair of charcoal J.C. Penney slacks, without shirt or socks. The carpet at my feet is littered with cast-off clothes and Budweiser cans. It is, as they say, the end of an affair. We are trying to decide whether to order meatballs or pepperoni. Concealed from your gaze by that curtain of hair, I am staring intently at you, attempting to fix this image in my mind, while you prattle on about toppings. I succeeded only too well, it seems, for the image is still there today, indelible and tormenting: salient against the dark of your summer tan, your breasts are turning green and red, semaphores flashing in