Book Group

A dip into the stream of consciousness.

we meet for pizza and to discuss a book turns out half of us hadn’t finished or even started reading, next to me m. head shake smile i tilt sideways to talk low about slackers feeling conspiratorial/playfully affectionate as group conversations merge, swell, fracture; hours later with but four slices of pizza left uneaten we spill out onto the sidewalk for farewells. i love sitting next to you I tell m. all effusion and she answers exact yes, me, too; that I make her feel (she pauses) safe, such a precise word that blossoms in these trapdoor days into a verse by swinburne, that no man lives forever, that dead men rise up never, that even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea, and i dunno there may be a rule about inserting someone else’s poem into my own stream of consciousness narrative but this is what actually went through my mind when m. said safe and yes obviously she meant safe as in the proximate moment safe, an in she can count on me, but melodramatic geek me free-associates to safe past this mortal coil, not a feeling but a provenance, then someone loudly remembers the leftover pizza and i am back, grateful to be a living friend, to hug m. before walking to my car, a prosaic convenience for this river drowsy but not weary, that dark sea still a very distant comfort.