James Tate\'s Return to the City of White Donkeys

¶ … white walls crept up around me as I slept in the darkness of my room

He was in my dreams again. I wish he would stop haunting me. This time he appeared with a camera, which he held in front of his face first, then mine, and with the click of a button we were there, framed together.

I did not like the effect. I would rather have him here with me in bed. In my bed. The one with the satin sheets and warm colors that mirror my heart's sentiments for a man I have never met.

He has power over me in my dreams. I like it, sometimes, but sometimes I cannot breathe like the way I feel when I see the white walls. They are bare, blank, empty, but not quite raw because they are still new. I would prefer they stayed new, which is why there is nothing on them yet. No artwork I have seen deserves to make holes there, in the wall. All I can think about here, now, is he who haunts my dreams and punches a hole in my heart where before

I was free. Damn him, I am trapped here in my satin sheets with no one but a pug at my feet. He is so cute, the pug at my feet.

He is my friend in flesh and blood, but when the phone vibrates,

I stop petting the pug to pick up the phone, and all there is a friend request from someone I have never heard of and a photo of Julie Cooper's dinner. She made soup. He didn't even write me back.

I checked. At the top there, it says "messages," and I checked again and again. Nothing there, like my walls. Bare and bland, I hate them so I envision what I would do if they were not as white as they are.

Would I prefer that they were bare but red, black, green, or purple?

I try to imagine my cream colored satin sheets against each color in turn, and they all look better than white. Having never painted walls,

I laugh inwardly at the sad, sad state of affairs my lovestruck mind has melted into. The pug is soft, his fur is blending with the satin sheets. If he were here, his skin would be warm against mine and the pug would have two people in his bed to love.