The man sports a handlebar mustache and is carrying a small plastic cooler. The woman has a profile fit for the cover of a new edition of a Jane Austen novel, some long-lost portrait done by an unknown artist of a woman once longed for. I see this couple on a subway platform in Brooklyn, New York. She says, "Let's sit here." He says, "Why?" She says, "Because when we get off the train we'll be close to our exit here, and I want to sit down." She means the bench. "I want to rest my feet," she says. She sits. He keeps walking. He stops, looks back, doesn't want to give in to the woman. He says nothing, walks to her and sits down. She is happy because she has won this argument. The train comes. We board. I sit. She sits across from me. He doesn't sit. She says, "Sit here with me." He says, "Why?" She says, "Why not?" He says, "I don't know." She smiles. He sits several seats away, the cooler now on his lap. They must have been at a party together, or maybe on a picnic. He looks across the subway car at her. She really is a very beautiful woman. He gets up from his seat to sit next to her. He sets the cooler on the floor beneath his feet and rests his hand on her bare knee. She rests her head on his shoulder. The book in which I write this scene has a photograph on the cover of Antonio Canova's sculpture "Pysche Revived by Cupid's Kiss." I can't believe Psyche was ever sleeping. Recently I've been reading Krishnamurti who insisted that all relationships are ultimately relationships we are having with ourselves -- that internal push/pull of lust, thoughts, need, fear, hope, desire, pain, need, thoughts, hope, fear, hope, thoughts, desire, pain, need, want, need.
Shhh. Quiet now. Let's touch. Let's let Cupid win.
