Kristin Prevallet

A DREAM OF FINANCIAL RUIN

End of the line. Wanting to sleep with a stockbroker coolly.
He whipped and tallied, I did not protest. What is the fun of
outrage? We went darkly, not without warning. I had desire,
but could not find the connection, much less the plug. I claim
all who desire me. That would be tricky.

A suburban hussy. My destination chained to a rock. We ate
doughnuts as if like roaches they would be around forever.
Surviving revolutions in countries that stockbrokers prevent
from uprising. Selfish deceit. My stomach was always full.
His intentions were less replenished. I snooked him anyway.

Jars and jars of pennies sent crashing to the ground. The
world made of money, lightened up. Heavy in my heart, he
began with a matter of small coincidence. Because I was from
Denver did I know so-and-so? I'd say not. Rather, I would
have been in high-school then. I didn't know about such
things as death in bars. He sought my heart and I bled. Not
the last drop which was my own, stopping by, to see him
again and again.

The mahogany furniture shined and tarnished. Sitting, as in
hardly touched. I sat enfolded in my image, between the
shiny legs of the desk. He sought out coincidences in me, as
if time were calling in for messages. Nothing is that perfect. I
did not answer, I was not there. I had not known the story
and all who died there, just because it was in Denver.

Staying swanky New York, alone on a Saturday night. The
city wasn't big enough to indulge his uncertainty, he said, but
he sought out fun anyhow. Uncertainly, how was it, finding
a small hole-in-the-wall, talking with all the patrons, a time
passed just in the passing of it, all night long. Two walked in,
they knew the ropes. They chatted a bit, after all, in the night
we are all young.

It comes about that the city is a small place after all, and they
had known her, in Denver. Strange coincidence, to find the
dead in strange places, to know those who knew every
detail. The lack of which was his haunting, always wondering.
And his knowing now makes it all more pained. Seeking
coincidences in everyone. A permanent connection of time
and place. That it be repeated. That it will not happen again.

I had no drink, but was located with the girl, with the couple,
and with he behind the desk. We thought but never said, to
cast it all away, but then I remembered that his body was
ashen. He had torn it all away in car wrecks, and now time
was settling in with the dents. After it all, I had not wanted
redemption for the time that passed. Only that in sitting with
him there for three hours as I did, as my heart fell to the
ground.

I imagined all sorts of beaches. Waterfronts of lust, where
the desk was blurred and his knack for numbers hardened
where it counts. That I cared for his wedding? Hardly. How
in loneliness I sat before him, a lie all my own. A flat for him
to come-to. I saw the two coins that fell between us, how
joyfully they broke in two and the world was saved from
financial ruin. And always, saying that it is never too late to
try again.

He came and I was treated fairly. A coincidence that we had
met. If only a day sooner, then a connection hard-placed. But
the flesh of him, there between who he wanted me to be and
that hole in his head. A fantasy of entrance was good, in
dreams. But in thought, he would never come. We sat
brooding darkly over the numbers. I had it in mind to treat
him fairly. Lick and insult. Round that hardened place that
made him. Would that time had no past.
 
 
 

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