Insert coin and squeeze

The girl with the cat boards the bus and sits opposite me
the girl's lips form tumescent ellipses
as her eyes fix mine
with hyperbolic ferocity

"Are you staring at me?"She asks
"No I'm not" I reply
(I am staring at her)
"Are you some sort of lonely pervert?" she asks
"Can we break that question down into three parts?"I ask
I glance at the cat
"Don't ask me for advice" it says
"I am a dead end"

"(a) I am not lonely" I reply
(I am so lonely that it feels like rats have burrowed down into my heart)
"I am very popular- particularly amongst my contemporaries" I add
(She is the first person who has spoken to me in six months
her voice is like
the vibration of birdsong on the surface of the pools
that form in the mouths of
bougainvillea).

(b) "You are of no interest to me."
(I already love her a little)

"And (c) I am not a pervert"
(I have already envisioned our tryst,
she is a surprisingly gentle lover
but I frighten her.
The marks left by my fingertips
on her forearms
resemble
the eastbound shuttle stops
of the San Francisco Ferry)

She is standing up
her fists shoot from her pockets as if they were holsters
the cat stares at the ceiling
she has seen all of this before

"Do you want it?" she asks
there is face powder on the lapels of her blue jacket
and in it
there are tiny footprints
that spiral upwards towards her throat.
Her face is contorted like a steel girder
which is about to snap
"Yes, I want it" I reply

The punches that rain down on me feel like nuptial kisses
I have not been touched by a human being since
I was ushered out of a bus station
on New Years Eve
for
praying to a poster
of David Beckham

Her fingers are in my hair now
and I reach out to touch her hands.
Her feelings for me are
vehement
and I have only gratitude

I lie on the floor
the underside
of her trainer
is on my face
there is a brief hiatus during which I watch a film about bee keeping
which I have written in my head
to keep myself alive

She is helping me to my feet
her face is flushed
she is barely eighteen and
she is already cowled
by the weight of the anger
she carries

She hands me the cat
"You will need this" she says
and gets off the bus

The cat stares at me
her breath is on my face
"you are still alone" she says
The bus pulls away