ragraph or paragraphless poem it’d be about a man who falls in love with this daughter without knowing who the genetic father is and maybe even gets her pregnant, even if the theme’s been done and done and for millenniums before. But Helene or whoever it might be though for now she seems my best remote hope. Want her to get pregnant on the bedspread, quilt or sheet or if we do it in front of the fired-up fireplace then on the floor. To teach school while she’s pregnant if it is Helene with me that summer and whatever summer that’ll be though I hope some summer soon. This one, at least the next one. Want my mother to visit us for a week that summer wherever it’ll be though I hope someplace uncrowded and Northeast and near but not on a secluded but unhumid shore. Her parents or mother or sibling to come for a week if she wants or friend or student if it’s Helene and she has favorite students and if it isn’t then if this woman’s also a college teacher, and to have the time for all this she’d almost have to be or a self-supporting artist of some sort, to come for a night or two. Want to move in with whoever this woman will be when we return. To vacate my place the previous June and go to France with her for a month and then Maine for the rest of the summer or just Maine or someplace secluded and cool for two months since we probably couldn’t afford, I know I couldn’t by this summer, a trip abroad. Want my name on her mailbox if it’s her place I do move in to. Not taped onto it but stamped if her name’s also stamped into the nameplate. And maybe not for her to be pregnant this summer in Maine or wherever it’ll be but reasonably soon. I can also see where some to a lot of this could happen or something comparable to. No, ridiculous, all of it, I don’t know what it is, sure it is, maybe it’s not, because I think she gave me a look and said some expression that suggested some of this could start happening and not unreasonably soon. Something like: not tonight, give it time, I’m talking about us, don’t rush, you seemed a bit interested in me, I seemed a bit interested in you, so? no harm there, just don’t ruin. I don’t think I’m fooling myself. Ask yourself if you are. Are I? Am I? I don’t think so. So no. Because I really do think I saw and heard things from her that suggested he’s a bit odd, that guy, or maybe spontaneous is the word or extemporaneous to be truly fair, but I think I could get to like him if it got that far, so I hope he calls but if he doesn’t then he didn’t and it wouldn’t be I don’t think because of anything I did or didn’t do. But I won’t call him if he doesn’t me, since that’s not what I do. Least not with a man I just met and am not bowled over by. But if — This how I think she speaks? Not quite but go on. But if he calls I’ll see him I guess unless he acts drunk or moronic, vulgar or worse, for that sort of behavior’s another story, one I quickly put down with a vow never to pick up again, no matter how short. But if he does call and we get together and I’m right about him, it might turn out to be a good thing. For I like a man who’s straightforward and just a bit aggressive but who still stays at the beginning and maybe for all time somewhat ungainly and shy. I think that was him. I liked it that he pursued me, continued to eye me, getting up close and just as he was about to say something, backing off, then catching me at the door. He could have let me leave, got my phone number from Diana or got Diana to phone me to say she has this friend who’d like to meet me, or just forgotten it. Party fantasies usually end when the party fantasized goes out the door. Wish I had a little more of that go-after-what-you-want stuff. But men are men — that’s what they do, are good for, trained to from puppyhood — the hare is loose: release the hounds — no matter how shy and ungainly or up to a point. Eyed me a bit too desirously sometimes but I liked it in a way for it said “I’m interested and if you are you can say so by looking at me from time to time in a certain though certainly less interested way,” or I at least didn’t mind his occasional desirous look or not that much. He didn’t at least goo-goo his eyes and lick his teeth for all to see and say absolutely the wrong things and too loudly, embarrassing me. Ah, but that balcony scene — he couldn’t have spared me? But he wasn’t that physically attractive to me, which isn’t to say I didn’t like his face. It was all right, nothing great, nothing to lob my eyes back to him and think “Hmm, quite the striker that guy,” but that’s okay. Better the looks most times, worse the insecurities and ego, or that’s been my experience, not that I wouldn’t see a man just because he was extremely handsome as long as he had many of the other qualities I like. And he seemed to have an adequate physique — adequately slim and straight, for his age, no pot or blobbiness or weightlifter’s stuffed muscles and sun-stiffened skin or with no ass which, unkind, limiting and even shallow as that might make me, I’m afraid I do mind, but I guess I could live with the big biceps and that kind of skin and behind. He was also at least two inches taller than I when I don’t wear shoes. I like that difference and to be taller than the man when I want to too. His hair was okay, not entirely gray, not a mop or blown-dry, which makes even the most gifted Latinist look like the most nitwitted TV sportscaster, and sufficiently trim and seemingly clean. But the way he spoke. It at least wasn’t a dull and dumb voice and one where I had to tug out my ear to hear. Smart but not arched is the best way I’d put it now. None of that “Now that’s good for a laugh, haw haw haw.” I think I’m remembering this right, but the history of my considerations and positions, though much less in literary things, tells me I can be quite wrong. But there had to be something I liked about him to propose when he said he’d like to speak to me again that he call me and I think it might have been a couple of things but particularly his voice. I didn’t do it just to later shake him off. Diana did seem chummy with him and she’s said she never becomes friends with any man who isn’t interesting, talented, lively and bright. She sends the others packing, she’s said, to forestall boredom, and not just lovers, unless they can do something immediate for her career and books, and even if he looked the helpful type, it seemed he was having a tough enough time keeping afloat on his own. But if he was up there at that colony of theirs he must be doing something fairly interesting in whatever field his is. Did he say? Don’t think so or didn’t hear, but then our talk was so short. What did he speak about? Nothing to give much of a clue what he does when he isn’t shooting down drinks and food and scrutinizing the calves and backsides of girls. We talked about the wedding reception I was off to. The kind of work I don’t do. How long I’ve been at the party. That I don’t like going to weddings or their receptions and he does. Mostly because he likes the accompanying food and booze? That we both thought it’d be nice to speak to the other again, but me a bit less than he and he since he first saw me, which could have been when I came in. At least I noticed him then, but not looking at me. What was he doing? I forget. But we first looked at the other when? Near the food table and bar again, when I was talking with a friend and he was with some people but seemed infinitely more interested in me. Each of us had a wineglass in hand. He stared at me I don’t know how long, seconds, then looked away. Why didn’t I look away first? Well, someone has to look away first, but why didn’t I? Wanted I believe to give him the incentive or excuse to walk over and speak to me or meet me at the food table or some place if he was too bashful or reserved to say “How do you do?” or “Do I know you?” or “Rooty-Kazoo says kerchoo to you too” while I was with someone else. Caught him staring at me the next time I looked. He smiled, I smiled, or maybe we smiled at the same time, but now I remember I smiled first. Why? Well, why not? No, wanted to let him know the first time wasn’t a mistake. Then it was my turn to look away but hoped I’d made my point and one I wouldn’t make again, which was to speak to me before I leave even if I’m with someone to the end. I also couldn’t just continue to smile and what expression do you make after you stop? So I had to look away, but while I was smiling. Why didn’t he first? I suppose because I smiled first and he didn’t want to be impolite. Besides, I was still talking to someone, while he was alone, so it was easier for him to hold his smile on me than it was for me on him. We also talked about marriage: that he’d never been and that I’d gone to my friend’s wedding under false pretenses. Did I get in my pitch for the institution? Maybe my face said it, for it’s how I feel. So he’s been single for all of his around forty years. If he’s over forty or even right on it, and he didn’t seem to be doing anything not to look it, that would put him in the oh point five percentile of his sex. He’s either lived a number of times with women, would be my guess, or for a while was strictly gay, but everything I quickly took in about him makes me doubt that. But just by the way he so eagerly and almost desperately followed me to the door makes me believe he’s the type who gets involved with a woman too fast when it’s clear to nearly everyone including the woman that he shouldn’t, and suffers a great deal when it doesn’t go the way he wants, which usually turns out to be the case. Therapy? Why’d I bring up that? Why even go into why, for I don’t want to once more go so far off the track. But I’m sure he scorns it but seriously feels he needs it and has been told so by most of his old girlfriends the last ten years, which could be the main reason he scorns it so much. Why do I think I know? Oh, some theory I have about men his age who do relatively little to enhance their appearance and in fact do what they can, short of drawing even more attention to themselves, to detract from it, as he seemed to, that makes me think they’ve not only never been in therapy, which if anything would increase their self-esteem, but also repudiate therapy, because they fear the changes it would bring or are just too lazy to begin or can only think of the long-term financial cost of it, which is justifiable within means, and of course several other things. Now that’s a psychological headful but what I’ve come to believe after knowing a number of men pretty deeply over the years, though my own therapist disagrees with my theory. What does she say? She says her male patients come in all sizes, colors, faces, ages and shapes and some wear five-hundred-dollar suits and go to beauticians twice a week for their hair and nails, and others cut their own hair with nailclippers they never think to use on their nails and bathe every third week and have never bought a sports jacket in their lives. Mothers, she’s said. Some men dress like slobs because their mothers always dressed them like princes and others dress like princes because their mothers dressed them like slobs. Or some dress like slobs because their mothers always dressed them like slobs and they haven’t much changed their ways and others dress like princes because when they were young their mothers dressed them like princes or they want their mothers to be drawn to them in some other than normal mother-son way or because, unprincelike and self-reliant as these men might be in every other way, their mothers still buy them their princely clothes. And women? I said. What makes them dress like princesses and slobs? and she said For all the same reasons, though substitute fathers for mothers for them, and in some in stances you can also substitute fathers for mothers for the way men dress and also mothers for fathers for the women. Anyway, I like a man better dressed than Mr. Krin and a tie would have been right for Diana’s party what with he should have known would be a preponderance of properly dressed people there, and what the heck, being suitably dressed for the occasion does more for you than not I’d guess. But I’m sure he has good reasons for dressing the way he did and I suspect the overriding one is his lack of means. Still, there was something I found sensual about him too. In the eyes, and I haven’t yet gone on about his smile, in that he didn’t footsy around and try to reach me by phone through Diana, in that he committed himself somewhat by pursuing me into the hall and saying right out his wish to speak to me again, but I don’t know or am not quite sure if sensuality and perseverance necessarily correlate. My experience, not vast but I think comprehensive with men, tells me they do, but that can’t always be the case. Of course it isn’t always or even very often and in fact they don’t, that’s all, so what am I talking about? — but that shout out the window of his, now that needs some thinking into. Really, if there was any one thing anyone I’d just met could do to make me immediately recoil from him, that shout was it. What was on his mind? I don’t know. Give it a try. Impulsion, self-destruction, sudden liking, perhaps desire. Perhaps deep desire. Or he needed attention, from me on the street and perhaps the people at the party, but I don’t think that was it. Then what? I give up. It probably wasn’t that embarrassing to me only because I was in too much of a rush to get to the reception to think about it, but he couldn’t have known that. Rush he knew but not that I couldn’t think that much about his shout. Anyway, looking at it in a different light, that shout could also mean that here is a man who will suddenly, and this I usually wouldn’t mind with someone I really liked, grab you on the street when you’re walking with him and hug you till you almost can’t breathe. Or kiss you squarely on the lips because he also suddenly feels like it — on the street or in a movie theater or even at a party filled with familiar people and that he’s also a person who screams when he squirts. Who twice a year or so despite his age will lift you off the bed with him in you and walk you around the room making these crazy carnal sounds, all of which I might like, that’s not the problem, but bounce you up and down in that standing-up position till you have to shout Put me down, you idiot, you’ll get a heart attack or trip and we’ll both be seriously hurt. Who doesn’t turn away from you after — I felt that. Who in fact turns in to you after. Who wipes the sweat off your face and chest after. Who keeps a handkerchief by his bedside for each of you to wipe his own pubic area with after, though the woman first. Well, I don’t see how I can say that. Who falls asleep with his arms around you after. Who when he does turn over loves it when you turn over too and press your body into his back and backside and squeeze his penis briefly and cover your toes with his and stroke and hold his thigh. Who you can talk to before and after and he’ll listen and his comments about most things about you will be reasonable too. Who jokes. Who always carries a pad and pen with him which I bet he also keeps by his bedside for sudden knocked-out-of-sleep thoughts about his work but not about his life. Someone who can quote a thousand poems. Who probably has a few interesting interests and friends. Who brings his interests and problems to his best woman friend and lets her share the interests and help solve his problems too. Forget the last, but someone I can have some fun with. Even be kind of dippy with — la la. The window incident showed that. Nuts as it was, to me it did. Let’s face it, he’s probably a bit lonely too. How do I know? Well, he just seemed to be. By what he said and did there and after, but I can’t be expected to remember everything or so early go beyond much more than how I felt. But he came with no one, didn’t seem to know anyone there but Diana, didn’t seem to have the greatest success meeting anyone there but me, and even there he nearly flubbed it when he had a much better chance of meeting me than I think he knew, and I bet he also had no one to go home to in anyone’s home so I bet he also wants to ultimately have a long-lasting something with someone and in the long run share an apartment and get married and have a child some day with that long-lasting someone or even sooner than that and when he does,