CURVES

There is a restaurant you visit for years, you even have your own table under the begrimed upper window, the dank aspidistra and its stain on the sill. But then something irritates, as much nearly as Lyme, and how firmly an old door can close! People you see and then never see again, or trust and then don’t at all. Betrayal as obvious as a sign on a lawn. Familiar routes to the office are abandoned; same with authors, long-held opinions. Everything in flux, a radio signal warping into static, losing the gist of the interview, the confession, the no-wave song. White noise anaesthetic you use to drown out traffic and sleep.