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Paul Kafka five or ten years she'd inherit her way back across town, almost down the street from me if she didn't sell into a poorer place. It made it seem I had nothing to offer her. Almost. That and Max, whom I liked as much as any man I've known casually. "Will you live with me?" I said. Not suddenly because we'd both been waiting. Still everything shifted minutely. The grey day on the window. The open closet with all the shoes in front of it. "When I finish the book. Why don't you come to us?" I wondered when she'd finish. I wondered if she meant it about my coming. I looked around the small, yellow room. Anne's room. Arine, naked, pregnant, Terry's fingers on her taut belly like a doctor's fingers, confident. Holding what's there. "You think she'll come back," I said. Rachel looked at me, her curls like question marks. I went on. "She'll come up to me on the street. We'll be on opposite sides. I won't see her or her friend because my head's down. She'll cross and pull me up. And she'll wonder if that's going to start us all over again." Rachel might not have been listening. She looked at the window air as if there were snow in it. "That's living, for Anne. Being alive."—I took her hand and^ sucked the sides of two fingers. Anything to turn her eyes.—"But she won't come back here." I sucked. "You see, the difference between Anne and animals is that animals know what's going to happen to them." Nothing. Then she giggled, sipped. I'd forgotten how she surprised herself. She laughed^ slowly, and then not again afterwards. It was like watching the sun through the clouds. he news came on at five. We were wet again. The crescent :'lnoons and peaked stars on the sheets were scattered over hills "and folds. Under my hairy legs, her fuzzy legs. The four of them plump, spoiled children^in -some Renaissance scene, naked at feast. We put on our glasses and immediately had to cover ourselves. I'd never been so glad to watch the news. She lay beside me, a quiet reminder, just being. The television spilled grey and pink puddles on the bureau top. The men and women were speaking beautifully, even those being interviewed. I marvelled at midday in Washington—the green lawn, the cars moving behind the newsman—while all over New York it was evening. On the radiator lid, dull. "You hungry?" I rolled my leg against her.