He imagines her as a predator, lips spread back against teeth, tongue lolling pink in the grey of the coming dawn, twisting, raging with the music in the shining darkness of the dock warehouse. He imagines her off in the distance, following the forever white line of the freeway, tossing her dark hair, the sway of her hips, her lower lip curling out, pouting, or pensive, sweater arms wrapped around her waist, bare arms taut against the wind. He imagines the folding knife in her purse, the poised symmetry, elegant, smooth, cold. He imagines her as gone, pale body sleeping fetal, or held against someone else. Rock carelessly on your heels, yawn and show your teeth, and give the nervous and idling crowds the slow, measured gaze of a predator.
Hissing drops tense and vanish.
Someone long ago has painted a sign here, on a piece of weathered driftwood. Somewhere, above me, the flapping of wings. Talking out loud again. Like Ma Bell, I've got the Ill Communications.