A sooty veil of anguish draws over my eyes as she slinks away, and her legs--stockinged, angular--cross over each other and form ampersands, as if to tease me, to remind me that we were bonded once, intertwined, interlaced, if not in love, than in circumstance, and should we meet again, both ruddy-cheeked and randy, perhaps eyeing each other across the lonely desert of a hotel bar, then she will tip a glass in salute and I will tip a bottle in reply, while trying my best to forget that faithful and blasphemous night when beneath the water-stained ceiling, on the twice-flipped mattress, I told her that "I've never seen the ocean" and she placed her head upon my chest, her hair spilling over it like a slick of oil, and she uttered that inimitable, inevitable catchphrase: "Lots o' funny for zero money: Can I get a Comedy Bang Bang Shebang, Whoop Whoop!"
