The Zone of Interest

In the sitting room Norberte Uhl

(I like numbers. They speak of logic, exactitude, and thrift. I’m a little uncertain, sometimes, about ‘one’ – about whether it denotes quantity, or is being used as a . . . ‘pronoun’? But consistency’s the thing. And I like numbers. Numbers, numerals, integers. Digits!)

we dwelt in a land, she and I, where it amounted to an act of illicit collusion.

I hadn’t had a decent thought in my head for seven or eight years

would it be so strange, really, to urge her on inside and to lean into her and gather in my dropped hands the white folds of her dress? Would it? Here? Where everything was allowed?

Would it be so unwelcome, really, if I quietly joined her on the sofa and, after some murmured compliments, took her hand, and (depending on how that went) gently smoothed my lips against the base of her neck? Would it?