I always try to memorize his facebut I never can. I can sayhe has a face, he hasa body, an apartment.He has a bowl of ice waterwhere he soaks his handsbecause of tendons in his fingers.He has a plant with long leaveson the ledge above his toilet.Once when I was thereand he had left the roomI wrote on a scrap of paper in my wallethe’s just a personso I could read itlater, when I was home.*I wait where a dirt path through a meadowlets out at a gravel patch beside the paved road.The air smells heavy, opulent.Before the place the redwoods startare orchards. The story ismy car broke down and he’sa stranger driving by.Or I park on his streetand stand a minute gathering myselfbehind the car. When I step out front, I’ll see himblue-lit, sitting by the window typing.He won’t hear me move untilI tap my knuckles to the glass.It’s hard to look at him right awayso I look at the white stretchof his t-shirt.The nubby latticepattern of the rug.I step off my heels.He wants me to kneel in frontof a mirror and say my nameand point to every partof me that’s his.*At a party, a strangerwearing nothing but a fishing netembraces me because he lovesmy friend, who wears a matching netwith shiny lures taped to her nipples.A person in a Pilgrim costumetells me how the person on the sofasaved her marriage by becomingwhat she calls their third. She metthe person in the park, their daughtershad the same name.*When I ask him not to say my namehe thinks I’m saying names would feeltoo close. They feel too distant.He hands me the folded remnantof a shirt he tore off me the week before.I think you leave things here on purpose.I didn’t leave that, it’s garbage.You also left your hair thing.Later, we watch a video of himclimb a cliff next to the ocean.The day is cloudy, shadowless.We watch his fingers feel outangles on the rock and pullhis body higher.Three thousand peoplewatched it before me.From his bedyou see the dense crownof a fig tree in the yard next doorwhere the tenant hung himselflast spring. Now blue tarpcurtains the house,the landlord is renovating.I feel a happiness so concentratedit feels like fear.*He has a lamp he softenswhen I come, draping his shirtover the shade.He has a winding blue-greenhelix tattooed up his side.On my way, I stopat gas stations and stand in the bathroomchecking. If you say the feeling out loudit sounds comic, disproportionate.I press brown paper towelto my forehead.*Sun covered the bed.I lay listening to him movingthrough the other room, hearingwater, hearing somethingopen, shut, then silencethen him coming nearer.How do you get close to a person?Once you got past pleasurethere was pain. Nothere was pleasure turninginto something pain waspart of. If you can let themhurt you deep enough, you’ll beinside the other person.Driving up nights on the freeway, dark fieldstearing by on either side, I practicesaying hi. Hi.