Fugue # 8

Her bedroom, upstairs and to the right, after school afternoon. Fall light filtering through white curtains and between them cutting a soft rectangle on the shag carpet across the floor onto her bedskirt. She's sitting on the bed, and I'm sitting on the floor, and we're not talking or looking up from our books and notebooks, and we're definitely not getting anything done.

She clears her throat, then I clear mine. She asks:
- Do you want to put on some music?
- Sure...like what?
- R.E.M.?
- Ok.

Life’s Rich Pageant. It’s 1985. Begin the Begin. She asks:
- So...do you understand this Whitman stuff?
- I think so. Song of Myself is just - he's cataloging his world, documenting it, creating his own living history, and ours.

- The lists tho...man.
- Yeah.

A pause. She asks:
- What do you think about this part?

She bites her pen, and I don't immediately understand the look she gives me, but the words help.