Angel in a Wooden Bra / Page 4 of 20


	the plane to Milan in the San Francisco airport Dean bought a paperback novel and, after take off, read to me the parts where the hero feels so bad about his little evils, bad thoughts and small black deeds, he's sure he'll die from prostate cancer and spend the last year of his life cycling between doctors' offices reading about Tammie Wynette in worn out magazines while waiting to show his naked butt to complete strangers. then Dean fell asleep. his warm cheek against me, he drools in my hair. in the seat next to me, is a 20 year old woman. hair the color of cranberry jello, black lipstick, and glitter on her cheeks, she's french kissing her j crew boyfriend, the black fingernails of her left hand in his prefect blond pageboy hair, while she writes black ink in a leather bound journal. pages of confession laid down as we fly over New York and Greenland. London. Paris. we haven't arrived and she's having a more intense Italian vacation than me. I can't reach my sketch book without waking Dean. I'm pinned down in a metal shipping tube with this shiny dark woman and dozens of 70 year-olds who have crept onto the plane clinging to each other, panting with the exertion of finding their seat. Italy seems to have no say in what we send her.

the plane to Milan