Mao, On Contradictions

by Moshe Dann (May 2013)

Afterwards, we covered ourselves under blankets of innocence and unanswered questions, our differences and the beginning of a snowfall, breathing into white and grey patches of sky and our smoldering silence.

She held her cup against her cheek. The freckles on her nose darkened with her eyes.

The Empire State Building glittered majestically over the flat rooftops and steaming chimneys. I threw some stale bread to the pigeons below and watched them scramble for pieces in the snow, wondering if Toni was thinking about another man, or what she would do with me. Her preparations to leave made me want her more. She looked at me as if reading my mind and shook her head.

A large roach crawled from behind the stove in bloated confusion. I tried to kill it with a sudden stomp, raising dust from beneath the torn linoleum. Toni glared at me, startled by my sudden rage. I wished she would hug me undialectically.

Windows rattled against the cold wind. I wished she would put her arms around me, just because she felt like it and tried to hug her. She moved back, flipped the double locks and opened the door.

An elderly white woman emerged from the grocery store across the street, started to cross between the cars, then retreated suddenly and dropped her packages. A young black man offered to help and they walked across the street together, arm in arm through the herd of cars that waited impatiently, their engines steaming imminence and progress, the compassion of moving on.

He reached into the other pocket and handed me a neatly folded picture of the Temple Mount, an ad for El Al Airlines. Come To Israel, it read. Come Home.

When I looked back my dark footprints already melting in the snow, for a moment unobscured by others, they seemed to mark a simple path, an intricate trail of unintended purpose.

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