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her back, naked under a<br />
grimy sheet and senseless<br />
to the room. The single<br />
mattress on which she<br />
lay sat cockeyed in the<br />
middle of the floor.<br />
Unkempt clothing and<br />
personal items were<br />
littered all around.<br />
Her head was turned<br />
sharply to one side,<br />
exposing her face to<br />
the bright light coming<br />
through the windows.<br />
I stood stock still,<br />
waiting to see if she<br />
would wake, shocked by<br />
the prominence of her<br />
jutting male jaw and corded<br />
neck. A few stubbles stood<br />
out on her chin – golden in<br />
the sunlight, like her tawny<br />
woman’s hair, which fanned<br />
brightly across the mattress’s<br />
blue-and-white ticking. The<br />
grayed sheet had once been<br />
silky and pink. It only partly covered<br />
Fancy, leaving her breasts fully exposed.<br />
They were pale with tiny nipples, and<br />
were diminished to softish mounds. Her<br />
sex was large -- a soft, dark pile under<br />
the thin material of the sheet.<br />
Male genitals. Fancy and I had both<br />
rejected them, scorned them. Yet, this<br />
thing beneath the sheet -- unwanted,<br />
but alive -- looked innocent, to me,<br />
and so sentient and fragile that it was<br />
attractive, somehow. I felt an impulse to<br />
lay my hand on it, to give comfort with<br />
the lightness of my touch and the heat of<br />
my palm.<br />
For just a few seconds, I looked at it,<br />
then away, an accidental voyeur feeling<br />
suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment<br />
and guilt, and terribly aware that my<br />
continued presence in the room assaulted<br />
Fancy’s dignity. I took a last look at<br />
the artifacts of Fancy’s life displayed<br />
chaotically around the room -- a still<br />
life captured in the pristine light of<br />
the north-facing bay window. A battered<br />
train case lay on its side, spilling<br />
make-up across the vanity. Rips and runs<br />
stood out on a pair of dirty nylons<br />
hanging over the back of a coquettish<br />
vanity chair. A padded, beige push-up<br />
bra, dark with sweat marks, lay where it<br />
had been dropped on the floor. This room<br />
contained only women’s garments, but it<br />
felt like a man’s room, the room of a<br />
<strong>Glendale</strong> <strong>Community</strong> <strong>College</strong><br />
Eye Canon<br />
by Martine Cloud<br />
Charcoal<br />
1st place<br />
nomad -- not a domain,<br />
but a dry camp, Spartan<br />
and uncomfortable, easily abandoned.<br />
I fled the room quietly, loathe to<br />
disturb the silence of the house. I<br />
wanted to go straight to my car without<br />
encountering the man in the living<br />
room, but I felt I had no choice. It<br />
was important to me to acknowledge to<br />
Fancy that I had been there, in case she<br />
retained a memory of my coming. The man<br />
was still sitting in the broken chair.<br />
He looked up and stared at me without<br />
connection.<br />
“Will you tell Fancy I was here? I’m<br />
Patricia. It’s important to me that she<br />
knows.”<br />
He lowered his head without<br />
acknowledging me in any way. I waited<br />
a full minute, without a sign he had<br />
heard me, finally turning away with an<br />
eerie, uncomfortable feeling that was<br />
still there, when I reached the car. I<br />
leaned with my hands against the warm<br />
metal, trying to take stock, willing<br />
every detail of that bright blue day to<br />
soak into my skin, and everything I had<br />
ever seen, or heard, or felt about Fancy<br />
to imprint itself on me. I knew it was<br />
important to remember every detail of the<br />
experience, to preserve -- at all costs<br />
-- the chance to understand it at some<br />
later time.. even if it was much later…<br />
even if it was never.<br />
9
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