Everything was exactly the way it had always been:
the limos waiting at the hotel in the square, the boutiques,
scalpers, the patter of salespeople, the elaborate
legal structures. Most of the celebrities of the time
came from the stillness of the local swimming pools,
moving forward like subterranean homeowners
in search of slow rivers. There was scarcely any sound
save the melancholy cries of husbands collapsing.
(There can be no transcendence.)

All the way back to New York, the management tried
to determine each person's sex by the view of the city
and mountains from their sick beds. The ear doctor
diagnosed all our ailments as simple misunderstanding.
There was nothing really wrong.

After California, the swarm of boys assembled at the station.
They were trying to do everything as 'New York' as possible.
They waltzed with their companions, retribalized,
in the last available hotel room in town.

I believe in omens. When the road reached
the sea, I looked for a place to stop before
the storm smothered us. Everyone worried
that the light might be unnatural.