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   w a r m    r e g a r d s,    m r.    k i e r k e g a a r d

--- H E R M A N   B E A V E R S


Tattooed women negotiate the sand, dragging beach chairs to confront the sun. They don’t squint against the glare. They don’t believe the sun requires anything resembling an adjective: its not angry, hostile, unrelenting, threatening, indifferent, punishing, or anorexic. These are woman that deal in plain facts, speech as flat as a hand waiting for money. The sun always gives up what it promises. There's something about the nature of stars. By the time light reaches us, its history. So, you see, these women, with their tattooes that say "That’s the Shit" or "Try me!", that portray a man and a woman coiled together like the symbols for yin and yang, they know that what's providing the color is a force residing in the past tense. See, they know the difference between fusion and radiation: the former is a process, the latter is the thing in motion. Ok, so it’s not scientific. But isn't there something to be said for the way these women chase the sun till it disappears behind the hotel? Then, they gather up their things, throw their beach towels over their shoulder, slip back into their high heels, pick up the Kierkegaard they've been reading and make their way across the cooling sand. And if it looks like they’re smirking or rolling their eyes at men like me, with our sagging bellies, our crusted feet, the regret stiffening our bones, it is as fleeting as the attention paid us by the stars, a matter of times gone by, a simple trick of the light.

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published in association with the |
university of pennsylvania's kelly writers house |