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47 Deya I In Deya, the streets were scrubbed with wind-borne sand wheeling from beyond the Southern Ocean. Everyone wore masks like holdup men in Westerns, and hats, chapped hands frozen in the act of tipping, pulling down. We wore our caps, baseball or Kangol hooding our eyes, strode the streets unbowed, cool gangsters casing banks we were dead-set on knocking over to the furtive looks of disbelieving natives. Ve—Los negros, they whispered into their upturned collars! Ve te, Ve! (They come, They come! Look, look!), only mildly chiding children as they pointed, strained to touch our hair, our skin, to see if this kinky nimbus, pitchblack cloak of night would change under their thin white hands, suddenly rub off. It never did. II After five straight hours I pulled over, let him drive, drifted into dreaming before my eyes closed, feeling lips on mine, a familiar song, the long-promised kisses I had not gotten in the morning. A lover’s face. A black-clad band of brothers. A dream lover’s face, moving with imagination’s too deliberate speed toward caresses that never happened, never will. The ache of wanting salty in my mouth, Tantalus’s punishment to feel the longed-for oasis hovering just beyond the next curve in the road, just around the bend, and never get there, like standing beside some dark beloved, watching him luxuriate in another’s arms. Waking with a start, tears in my eyes as the other’s face comes slowly clear. It is my own. What is it? Deya asked. Blushing, my face parted, formed an enigmatic smile. III Wandering, fading light as slanted as a pitching boat in the middle of a storm, the sky’s electric, poised upon a precipice, in love with its impending fall, flashing rays of sun thin knives slipped between the ribs of clouds. Rudderless, alone, 48 bruised as if beaten by betrayal, you stumble on, enraged, cold, in a fury without center, the winds angered by some distant slight, pure hatred turning inward on itself. The bare lonesomeness of walls seeps into you. Try to shake it off, stare into clouds brought low by thunder, the tops of buildings obscured from sight as if the center of the earth had suddenly caught fire. There is a name for this time of day here, the guidebooks tell you. They call it Deya. It is better not to venture out. IV Half-past lost. Or evenings of the days that drag forever onward, threatening not to end. The empty opening inside. Nights pitch-black with exhaustion, filled with graveyards and dark pits. Afterward, as bodies peel from one another, separate back to separate beings from an uninspired coupling, avoiding touch or eyes to mask faces filled with embarrassment, with shame. Homecomings to a silent room, air aswirl with the other’s leaving, click of a suitcase quickly filled, rip of zippered bags still echoing down the hall. Or before. The open emptiness inside. Rise. Go to another room. Drink a glass of water slowly and relax. Fill the weeping lungs with air, try to speak. Deya—whisper softly. Deya. ...

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