Stag

“They are horrible things,” she said. “They are very loud and mate once a year in a cacophony …” No, she wouldn’t have said “cacophony”. She didn’t like poetry I remember because things could be said more simply. Fittingly she had me pull out one of the two books of poems I was most ready to get rid of. She introduced me to Kipling one might say. “How could you not know what it’s called?” she asked. Indeed, I had been aware of wandering around for the past few weeks having forgotten the name of the beetle tattooed on my wrist. I could only remember what it was called in Swedish, the language of the book of insects where the image came from. This person who really didn’t like the bugs reminded me. And in more detail than anyone before her she described them with a sort of forensic disgust. I’m not sure if she was tactless, helplessly straight-forward, or just still drunk. Anyway, I was charmed. There was no other way to take it. And really I took it as a gift to have the name back, and with such nonchalant familiarity that had nothing to do with affection. The interest was wholly mine, she gave away nothing. Strange, or maybe dolefully commonplace, that we can be so far apart in proclivities and yet offer something so welcoming in spite of ourselves. I gave her Daniel Deronda. Fuck Kipling.