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Nazareth icon glows blue atop the hospital, her face an empty circle, her
The Savage Gi r l 81
sleeves draping from arms held slightly out from her sides in an open-
palmed gesture of welcoming, which, upon continued viewing, always
seems to transform into a kind of apologetic shrug.
Sorry, she appears to say. No insurance, no service.
Nothing we can do.
Our hands are tied.
Talk to your congressman.
Ursula laughs to herself and in the sting of the wind feels a wetness
on her cheek. With her hand she confirms a couple of windblown tears.
She runs her finger under the bottom of her eye and feels more wetness
pooling. She blinks a few times. The false tears blur her vision a bit,
spreading the yellow lights from a nearby liquor-store sign over the bot-
tom of the sky, spreading the green and red traffic lights over the blacktop,
doing magic tricks with the wind, making of it confetti, whirling ashes, a
star garden, a flamingo waltz. And for one perfect moment, she sees the
city as the savage girl must see it, as Ivy must see it, as Javier must see it:
every nub of masonry and huddled shadow and dopplering rhythm ready
to burst open like a jack-in-the-box with some new message, every alley
and lot and building ready to serve as a mystical testing ground for the
human spirit, every square inch of concrete and tar replete with a meaning
after all, and it s not ugly, no, not really, it s actually quite beautiful, this
ugly, ugly place, and then her throat becomes thick, and she is sobbing.
Javier looks at her searchingly.
I m sorry, she says, her voice catching painfully in her throat.
Javier says nothing as she struggles to pull herself together, his eyes
luminous, sympathetic.
She takes a few breaths, wipes her face on her sleeve.
I ve always wanted . . . , she begins, I ve always longed to see the
world the way I think you see it, Javier. Like it s something more than it is.
But I just can t. I can t do it. Not for more than a minute. And then it s
gone again.
He nods. I know how that feels, he says.
She smiles miserably. Chas says you have some kind of mood disorder,
but as far as I can tell, I m the one with the disorder.
Her words seem to fluster him. After a moment he seems ready to speak
but she cuts him off.
All I mean to say is I don t want to bring you down. It s nice of you to
be so nice to me but I ll just bring you down, Javier. I bring everybody
down. So really, thanks for everything you ve done but
82 Al ex Shakar
He reaches over and takes her hand lightly in his, and her thoughts scat-
ter. After a moment the warmth of his hand seeps into hers, and she
watches, mesmerized, as their hands become the whole world. His slender
fingers slide around the backs and fronts of her own, wrapping them
slowly, carefully, in an invisible cocoon, suspending her hand limply in
space. Then, with the tips of his thumb and forefinger, he explores the
entire length of each of her fingers, starting at her thin, pointed knuckles
and tracing his way up the back and down the front of her palm. He holds
his hand out for her to explore in turn, and she traces the lines of his palm
with her fingertips as the palm reader did a while ago, and then moves to
the back of his hand, tracing the strong lines of his veins.
Their hands are the world.
The wind is chaos.
The cabs are order, orbiting moons.
He presses his palm into hers, and she returns the pressure. She parts
her fingers, allowing his into the more intimate regions between. A warm
shiver shoots from her opened fingers up through her arm and down her
legs. Their fingers slide into each other s, lock, clasp, and retreat, touching
tip to tip. And then his hand passes around behind hers and cradles it
from behind, and she can t remember a time she ever felt so comforted by
a man, so safe, so tended to, and she feels so much meaning in this little
gesture that she s afraid, and she has to pull her hand away, though the
moment she does, the rest of her slides into his arms.
Suit
Uis the axis of the woman in the man s bed that is nothing but a bed.
i is the axis of the woman in the hospital bed that is also a bed of sand,
that is also a bed of air, that is also the bed of a truck making its way
through a sandstorm in a trackless desert.
Chart a vector in the U-axis and grid yourself into a city, a neighbor-
hood, a house, a room, a side of a bed, the arms of a man. Slip into the
i-axis and slip off the grid. The arms of a hospital chair are also the arms of
a carnival ride, are also the arms of a meter measuring your proximity to
the truth, are also the arms of a broad-bellied djinni gyrating in a sand-
storm against an obscured horizon.
Ursula opens her eyes.
A new day, another sun, rising to the top of a tall window, tall curtains
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