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EMMA AYLOR OLD FRIEND I visited Sam's city last week, first time in a long time; now she's two blocks east of the room I sublet eleven years ago. Kensington's not so much different (I remember the bar with dried flowers hanging hazy from the entry ceiling, my Q stop, my F, my old pizza spot of cheap and perfect grandma slices), nor my friend: her face moves and creases in the same dear ways as college days. Our steady slowly gaining age makes public a pattern till lately secret: any stranger, now, could see in passing, in skin, how she holds her face while figuring, joyful, angry, thinking: key motifs a tilted star between eyebrows, pert slacks between chin and cheeks. It's the way I view aging, generally—more and more there's little between me and the rest, both hiding less and elevating a state of relation I'd call permeable. In my face, hers, find our commonest aspects. I've earned this look squinting and frowning in desert suns, northwest grays, and now can't help but open to you. And knowing her, knowing you, I love that an unaltered face, one left up to time, or out in it—lucky bright exposure—can't resist proof of habit, how it spends its days. |