A Cup of Rage The Rising It was already half past five when I said to her ‘I’m going to jump out of bed’ but she wound herself around me like a creeping vine, her claws closing where they could, and she had claws on her hands and claws on her feet, and a thick, strongly smelling birdlime over her whole body, and since we were almost grappling each other I said ‘let me go, little bindweed’, knowing that she liked it when I spoke that way, so in response she said, feigning solemnity, ‘I won’t let you go, my grave Cypressus erectus’, her eyes beaming with pride at her impressive repartee (although there she wasn’t well versed in botanical matters, even less so in the geometry of conifers, and the little that she dared flaunt concerning plants she had learnt from me and nobody else), and in the knowledge that there are no branches or trunks, however strong the tree may be, that can resist the advances of a creeper, I tore myself away from her while there was time and slipped quickly over to the window, immediately raised the blind and felt on my still warm body the cold, damp air that started to get in the room, but even so I leant on the sill and, deep in thought, saw that outside the day was barely starting to stretch its limbs under the weight of a thick fog, and I also noticed that, no more than sketches, the zinnias in the garden below were struggling to push up through the smudges of smoke, and I was at the window like this, my eyes on the top of the hill opposite, on the spot where the Seminary stood dimly in the fog, when she came up behind me and again wound herself around me, slipping the rope of her arms brazenly around my neck, but with skill I, using my elbows gently, kneading her firm breasts a little, was soon sharing the prison I was in with her, and, side by side, entwined, the two of us gradually interlaced our feet and that was how we went straight to the shower.
