Soutien
[Translated from Persian]
We're going to buy a suitcase. You talk about the difficulty of finding a bra in your size. "Double Ds" are hard to find. I want to say go to the stores where they fit you, but then I think, why bother? You and everyone else enjoy the way you're dressing now. You're not ungenerous. Neither am I. We reach the wooden items, and both of us are drawn to them, forgetting about the bra.
We look for pants. I talk about the difficulty of choosing clothes in your size. You ask why, I say "because your breasts and hips are large but your waist is slim." You say, "Well, that's good!" I agree! "You say it as if it's a bad thing!" I disagree! You're happy your waist has slimmed down, three months of exercise have paid off. I notice for the first time in these months the delicacy of your shoulders, now bare, not covered by a shawl or a coat, just a brown stretch. I'm captivated by their beauty. You close the door to try on the pants. I look down, still thinking of your shoulders. I see your shadow under the door. I watch. Your hands move. You open the zipper. The pants slide off your legs and away. You turn to get your other leg out, and your shadow follows the graceful motion of your body, and my eyes follow the movement of your shadow, creating a curve, the curve becomes tighter, peaks, and repeats! "Beautiful, isn't it?"
You hand me the printer and go to the shower. I like that you give me tasks and then go on to do your own. Like the table. Or the first time I came to this house. You said “I wish you could stay and make us dinner while I get on with my things”. It smells like life. I had said, “I wish I was here for your move, it would have been fun.” You said “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing a few days ago.” It was fun. You said—so late—“We should have lived together for three months…” I turn around, say “before you go in, enter the password”. You appear behind a white towel and a black bra, enter the password, and I turn back. Before I figure out the printer, you come out of the shower, in a white towel. “Can you give me the internet password?” You go to the other room and a few seconds later say “I texted it to you”. I go to enter the internet password in the printer and realize I need the printer's password. I Google it, it says it’s the serial number. I get up to turn the printer around to find its number, I bump into the faint reflection of your white skin behind the black bra in the window, slim waist. I keep moving my head, without hesitation. I return to the chair, an encounter of the first kind. Something throbs in my heart. I stand to get water. Encounter. With water, I return. Encounter. Finally, you appear. “Can you read this serial number for me?”
I'm uncomfortable in bed at night. I want to text you, apologizing for intruding your privacy without permission. I don't. I imagine myself looking into your eyes one of these days, telling you everything, and you looking back into mine, saying, "You did well. Look again."
20 December 2016
English translation: 2024
Menlo Park
[BY CC]
