Rivulets:  Prose Poetry for Our Times
    
    From the back, not from the beginning.  so that the writing might be a
    hollow victory at best (Betsy?).  I'll tell of ping pong in a mall in
    Atlanta yesterday.  Relationships ebb and flow:  "News Flash!", right? 
    But is the satisfaction in the having maintained, or in the
    establishing.  Can that be generalized or is it individuals?  A matter of
    chemistry (high school? body?).  I've definitely been stifled by a
    large soft pink rabbit as I fell asleep last night it lay between our
    pillows and did what passes for purring from a rabbit.  Fatal Attraction
    boiled a rabbit but that's been a long time.  (It was an English short
    film first, you know).  "Write, write, write (like a tomato)." -- Erica Jong
    The parentheses are mine (Sayeth the Lord).  That hollowness comes
    creeping back and again borderline sleep imagery of water in shallow
    trails, bulging drop in the lead, searching for its own level, with so
    many bloodhound noses in the lead.  Or invert it, like so many rolling
    balls on a ceiling, shot with the video camera upside down.  The water
    imagery works here too, without violating the laws of physics.  Picture
    this:  water filling a relatively flat dry woodland due to a new TVA dam
    (you're in a helicopter, keeping pace).  Just seeking its own level.  A
    new plateau.  Or maybe downhill was the better paradigm for
    relationships after a point.  In the mall there were two table tennis
    combatants.  As the emptiness returns such that blues music and The Wall
    have personal meaning again.  One an in-his-prime Caucasian of 3 decades
    fewer or more.  The other a 54-ish lithe Indian-American (NOT an American
    Indian), gentlemanly, greying on the sides.  The match was tied
    at 1 game each.  The younger fellow attacking and the elder
    Indian-American-originally-from-Africa playing quality defense, stroke
    after stroke after stroke.  The stereotype fit.  Points were enjoyable
    to watch back and forth -- occasionally the strength of the attack crashed
    over the rocks of the defense, other times the driving smashes broke upon
    the rocky defenses and fell away.  At some time there became a woman
    standing next to me, long brown hair and enough heft that she wasn't
    likely to be mistaken for an anchorwoman.  No makeup.  A pleasant face
    just the same; an Irish heritage, maybe.  Jeans, sweatshirt, worn
    sneakers and a growing enthusiasm for the contest in front of us.  Back
    and forth; drive, drive, drive; stroke, stroke, stroke.  POUNCE!  A
    counter-attack from the Indian and the ball was gone.  Amid the applause
    of the crowd she stated "He does have teeth."  I reflected rather on the
    rivulets finding the least resistant path down the older gentleman's
    cheeks, and on the effort it took to stay in the game while looking for
    a way to balance the relationship, in good sport.

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