Just Enough Time

Amnesty

You’re huddled in your coat, waitingat the corner for the sign—a little walking man—to give the go-ahead, the numbers,already counting downthe time left for a safe crossing.

And even if you look both waysand still wish to see beyond your seeing,you have only these twenty seconds,as you walk from one side to the other,late in the day, to catch the idealangle of the sun entering the notch

between buildings, and enameling just nowthe high windows and soffitsin cloisonné glimmerings; to enjoythis little amnesty of not thinkingif you’ve been given enough.

Sunset Time in Florida

It’s winter at home, but here the magical suntoppling into the Gulf abracadabras Happy Hourat a local bar with a view of the water;pocket-size waves ripplewith the tropical-fish colors of a sunwaving goodbye to a round of applause.

Escapees from a literature convention, we watchflorid men go by in shirts with little palm trees,and women with matching pastel topsand bottoms. We’re still on our first drinkwhen we discover what we have in commonis our singular complaint: we’re sixtyish

and invisible, though once we wereat least assured a gaze. We’re both married,she less happily so, or so I take her storyabout an affair to mean, though it could bea general unhappiness, the gap never closedbetween the world she planned to live in

and the one she’s living in. It’s clearthat neither of us wants sex, just the titillationof being desired. For anything to happenwe’d each have to be someone else.Who she is becomes clearer when she moanshow her unhappiness is a failure to be happy.

She’s feeling bad about feeling bad,when I order us a second round, and say,professorially, something stupid abouthow no one makes the most of their chances,and quote Lear, my go-to line when Gloucestersays mistakenly, “no worse, there is none,”

not yet realizing there’s worse to come.She looks at me as if I’m rapidly becomingpart of her problem, so I toast the after-bloomof light, a sunny tomorrow, and the enterpriseof a good night’s sleep, sidestepping Hamlet’sthoughts of the indignities the flesh is heir to.