That Was All I Ever Knew of Nepal

                        I sit in the tub

and watch clouds motor.

After the closed-door

                        shoutdown with Eleanor,

twelve-year-old Lucy showed

me her poster on Nepal.

                        The two red triangles

of the Nepalese flag,

symbolizing the Himalayas.

                        White sun on one.

Cool moon on the

other. Imports: petroleum

                        products, electricity,

fertilizer. Exports: jute,

leather, clothing, carpet,

                        hand-hammered tingsha

and singing bowls. Sal wood

obtained in forests, bamboo

                        and rattan. In her querulous

glitter-glue script: “One of

the poorest countries in

                        the world.” My friend

Megan died there. That

was all I ever knew of Nepal.

                        I was seventeen. We’d met

for cream-filled donuts from

Ed’s Market for breakfast on the

                        beach in south Jersey. Megan

down from Philly, me from

the suburbs. Her bright winter

                        skin on the beach in her jeans

and t-shirt. I laughed at her.

We talked about Eric,

                        her lover. A year later they were

sucked under a truck while motorcycling

in the mountains in Nepal. She’d

                        told me Eric was her all.

I met him once. She

was funny and kind,

                        never once offered a critical

word. Eleanor lost a significant

part of her mascara today

                        to her upper cheek when she

said she was “in love.”

Unlike others

                        she was actually in love

and would make her decisions

accordingly. Adventure, even

                        danger, in Mexico, with her

African/Swiss/French boyfriend. Other exports: grain,

herbal treatments, oils and

                        pashmina. Currency: rupee.

Flag of two pennants also symbolic

of Hinduism and Buddhism.

                        Blue border, peace and harmony.

Crimson, Nepal’s national

color. Brave spirit. The pulse

                        of the people. Megan had

those qualities. I was too

wrapped up in bimbo-ness to

                        be able to pin it down. Megan

and Eric died together. Tonight

it’s 46, tomorrow it will

                        be 8. In between, some

violence. In between, some

action. A skyful of scudding

                        clouds. Eleanor wept real tears

and we administered “tough love.”

I said Djibril had to man up

                        (trying to think of the French

equivalent) and finish high

school. Pay the

                        price of the year spent

skipping lycée and dealing

hashish. I said nothing

                        about Megan. I hadn’t

seen the poster yet, hadn’t

yet shocked the wits

                        out of Lucy and her friend Heather

by telling them the one

story I knew about their

                        chosen country. My friend Melora

Bonn from Philly came down

to the shore to visit, fell in love

                        with Megan’s brother, Rob.

I remember her stealthy, labyrinthine

journey into center city that fall

                        to the birth control pill doctor so

she could give Rob her flower.

A couple of years later,

                        after they’d split, she had

a breakdown at Penn.

I hated facing Rob at the beach

                        my heart would break. Rob

was a mechanic. He looked

like Arlo Guthrie. Melora said

                        all the time how smart

he was. But wasn’t it

me, just two weeks ago, after

                        a twelve-step meeting, advising

the younger man, Jon—

whose beautiful, intent face

                        (with one curved crease

down each gaunt cheek)

had been coming to me in dream,

                        I felt like the cellulite

monster. His face, his kind

laughing face, the time he

                        stopped his pickup in the middle

of Sixth Street in a snowstorm

to speak to me—he said, It’s always

                        a pleasure to see you. Knowing,

I guess, of his effectiveness

with women. I saw his face

                        on the icy highway going to work,

as one commute after another

the semis fell, taking cars with them.

                        Eleanor loves Djibril like a girl.

He’s her dove, her coney. I

know. I do know. “Adventure

                        and maybe even danger.” I hear

the wind spanking the house. The

temperature will drop

                        forty degrees. Maybe snow.

Jon’s knee will never

be right, from the time

                        the police shot him. And

he told me he was worried

about telling the woman he

                        was falling for that he wasn’t

from a two-parent family!

Possible snow

                        showers. Severe drop in temperature,

more opportunities for truck

crack-ups and the errant, the

random, the unlucky cars.