My Oh-So-Friendly Alter Ego

My Oh-So-Friendly Alter Ego

His modesty made me think of broken columns
    his smile             of crumbling stone fences

"There is a people," he said, "a desert, tribal people, who when they paint their houses
leave a corner unpainted, so as not to rival the perfection of God. Think of my

                                                       [omissions]

as my unpainted corners."

His heart was a cavern. But it was cozy in there: there were spider webs, and bugs, and
rotting mattresses, and easy chairs, and books, and
ancient
       yellow
photographs.