He tucks The Morning Line in his hip pocket & begins
the long trek home.
There’s not much time before he must leave for the south.
In Alexandria there’s a woman who sews & embroiders silk shrouds.
They are her gifts for all who have ever passed her door.
We encounter him after he’s lost twenty pounds & wrestles drunks
behind
a rooming-house in Baltimore.
Those who’ve been chosen are unaware of her special gift.
When it’s their time it merely appears on the desk of their town
magistrate.
The postman arrives at his door to deliver the letter from Prague &
is met with curses & a cocked pistol.
In January. In Paris. In a small bar. There sits a man without a nose
sipping from a cup of absinthe.
The woman who sent the letter to Simon has recently inherited a million
dollars from her son’s estate.
His daughter sits cross-legged on the floor tossing the dice he’d
whittled from the hip of their dead cat.
From Baltimore it’s a quick flight to Philadelphia where a man everyone
calls a hermit has built a shrine to the ‘god’ he calls: EX.
She informs Simon of the need to reinvent her life without either of them.
There’s a banknote for a thousand dollars enclosed.
If you choose to visit Philly you’ll find my Aunt Esther selling
tickets but you must not buy them from her – especially, not from
her.
When the dice come up red & black you have a stiff shot at success
& if they are both white you will invite your own death.
Go back to your car & west to Pittsburgh where the
money has been well laundered & the steaks are flown fresh from Missouri.
Never play too long at the same table. You are well-known here & the
trackers will find you soon enough.
In the south. In a hotel run by a retired mortician. There lives a woman
with one golden eye.
Go to her. She will see you now.
