Suzanne

Claude doesn’t scream. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t shake. He is stock still, frozen in horror. He has just lost his ocean. The one that was stopping him from being dashed against the rocks.

Mousse clings to you, the little koala.

He is calm. The calm of a person who has just made a choice.

Claude is your guide, unwrapping the city for you as he talks, like an endless gift.

You immediately want to stay. To make this cloud of smoke, this circle of words, yours.

A man watches you work. His eyes on your skin. A refuge for his virility. A space to be male in.

A trace of a smile on your face.

One day you’ll go to Quebec, where the women run fast.

He wants you to find words you don’t know to describe it.

He had the sort of presence that leaves an impression. Someone you feel has been there several minutes after he leaves. Claudia wanted to swim in his wake, bathe in what overflowed from him.

You have always had a voice that carries. Even when you whisper. You don’t know how to tone things down. Words move through your throat in a coarse, precise stream, a diamond, an arrow.