June 15

Tonight, or rather in the cool end-part of the day, I saw the great poet Rachel Zucker at Lafayette restaurant on Lafayette Street.   I beamed at her in my sunglasses from behind a potted palm, al fresco, and sipped my spritz from a blue striped straw, the kind of paper object that disentigrates if you are drinking slowly.  Then my friend Anne came to meet me and we ducked into the bar to discuss the past and our husbands (the great thing about Lafayette restaurant in addition to the $8 Old Fashioneds from 4-6pm is that like any good theater there are several spaces and proscenia for the acts to unfold.)  When later I emerged from the zinc bar I noticed Rachel — still there in the cool June evening with her bearded husband.   Avoiding introduction is my metier, but but I was so spritzed and oystered that I floated over to her table, interrupted her conversation and told her I loved her in different words.  You smiled at me earlier, she said, in your beautiful glasses.  Can I see them?   I pulled them out, a little embarrassed by their cheap plastic case, and told her the maker, Proof, and material, plywood, and when her husband asked my name, probably because he sensed I was trying with all my youth to pick her up, I said I’m nobody, and after a bit more chirping I walked myself out, eyes still shaded from the demonstration of the sunglasses, to the street.