Andrews, Nin

English

DigitalCommons@Providence College

© Providence College  The author(s) permits users to copy, distribute, display, and perform this work under the following conditions: (1) the original author(s) must be given proper attribution; (2) this work may not be used for commercial purposes; (3) the users may not alter, transform, or build upon this work; (4) users must make the license terms of this work clearly known for any reuse or distribution of this work. Upon request, as holder of this work’s copyright, the author(s) may waive any or all of these conditions.  The Prose Poem: An International Journal is produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) for the Providence College Digital Commons. http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/prosepoems/ THE PROSE POEM: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL  Volume 8 | 1999 My Aphrodisiac Nin Andrews  Nin Andrews MY APHRODISIAC Now that you are gone, I want to tell you you are wrong. About every-thing. Consider perspective as a case in point. You loved to inform me that faraway things appear smaller. I am here to tell you that distant things grow bigger. Missing objects are the largest of all. Their shadows can loom above us and darken an entire universe. In a single instant, they build cities of memory without a misplaced word. I know this for a fact. At a certain point in a life, an absence begins to grow. Your shadow, for example, is now drifting across my sheets and ceilings. Just the other night, you were standing behind me in the mirror and in the department store windows and on the subway and at Arabica's coffee shop, and when I stared at my eyes to apply mascara, I glimpsed you in the dark glow of my pupils. In desperation, I called to a man walking beneath my window, and he became you, answering my call with a grin, opening the door to my apartment with his sleeves rolled up to your elbows, his cold smoker's fingers. Instantly I caught a whiff of your fragrance, inhaled it as deeply as a summer rose; Such a scent! Call it bliss, eternity, oblivion, seventh heaven, the names of a thousand and one perfumes, the scent of a man in heat. Oh yes, men are in heat. Everywhere. Now that you are gone. 

My Aphrodisiac

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https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1536&amp;context=prosepoem

My Aphrodisiac

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