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"Yes," he said "It counts But I’s on the door Tuuard appeared

"Don’t be du I say he is I don’t knohat you’re planning, but don’t"

"Thank you," he said to the guard "I’ Alicia to the wall rattled as she yanked on it "Listen tohim!"

But these words barely reached his ears; Peter was already striding down the hall

61

And now,them

How do I know this? I know it as I know everything; I a pairs of eyes I a you I have watched you since the beginning, taking measure and stock Would it be too much to say that I felt your arrival on the day you were born into this world--a wet, squealing nugget, the hot blood of protest already pouring through your veins? I way of providence: all seems ordained, all known, both in forward and reverse

What an entrance you made! With what bold declaration, what showmanship, what authoritative poise did you step into the city’s lights and stake your claied metropolis fail to swoon under your spell, enchanted by the drama of your arrival? I aive, Alicia, these windy flights; reat Achilles stood without the battlehty Troy has our pocket of creation seen the likes of you Within those walls, no doubt, a great parliament commences Debates, edicts, threats and counterthreats--the custoht? Do we run? Earnest and ady--these discussions are to the outco: they only o faster

In your absence, Alicia, I have, so to speak, taken a page froht the dark beckons hty Gotham Summer has cobirds twitter; the trees and flowers clutter the breeze with their airborne sexual excreta; newborn creatures of every ilk undertake their first uncertain adventures in the grass (Last night, recalling your concerns forbunnies in your honor) What is this new restlessness inside lass and steel and stone, I feel closer to you, yes, but soly intense it is practically hallucinatory It was in summer, after all, when I traveled to New York for my friend Lucessi’s funeral, when this city first laid its hand of love upon me I close my eyes and there I am, with her, my Liz, the woman and the place indelible, one and the same The appointed hour at the clock, and then our exit into the moist human heat of the season’s early rush; the abrupt encapsulation of the taxi, with its cracked vinyl bench and feeling of a ing the streets and sidewalks; the i shrieks of sirens; thewith the hour’s exhausted light; , a rush of undifferentiated data to my brain, all of it permanently inseparable fro, sun-blessed shoulders The faint, womanly aroma of her perspiration in the sealed space of the taxi Her wan, expressive face, with its touch ofdeeper into things The perfection of her hand inmillions It has been said that in ancient tiender; in that blissful state, huods divided each of us in two, a cruelacross the earth in search of its ain

That was how her hand felt in my own, Alicia: as if, of all men upon the earth, I had found that one

Did she kiss ? Was it a dream? Is there a difference? That is my New York, as it was once so one--as is the city of your love, Alicia, the city of your Rose Call Fanning,to tell him that love is all there is, and love is pain, and love is taken away How hts did ony? And where was I? What fools we are What fools we mortals be