Angels

"The ocean", he says at 5 A.M., "I need to see the ocean". He speaks feverishly about friends near Nice, a balcony overlooking the Baie des Anges and misty summer nights under shallow rain clouds. Maybe it's the left-over fumes from yesterday's dose of opiates that cause him to trip across the words or maybe it's just the belated materialization of that chronic need to escape.

He gets up, his naked shoulders are ivory in the pale glow from the streetlights outside. He digs frantically through piles of papers and magazines looking for seasonal time tables (always trains, never airplanes), then stops abruptly, turning his sylphic silhouette towards me. The little I wear is smoke to his hands, his tongue lighter than a feather between my legs.  

It's the end of April and already unbearably warm. I can't imagine lasting an entire summer.