I had found her on the street corner, smoking a cigarette in the rain, reading a soggy yellow newspaper, looking at the people pass, watching their reactions to her smile, then rejoicing to their happiness, and finally, with a slippery approach, falling to the ground in a pale shyness and visible strength.  I walked to her, and asked her, "If you have the time?" and the girl did not respond, but handed me the newspaper and said, "If you have the day?"  I watched her and she studied me and I felt a strange sensation pass through my body, the reach of her hand to touch my skin, and with that touch, I became hazy, dizzy, gushing in my bloodbrain.  The world was now different and she was spinning out of control, her eyes flying with mine, time vaporizing and objects turning into people, the people becoming their objects.  I reached to touch her hand, for a moment, and we collided in and I felt sweet, reverie, oh, the calculated pauses we made in the moment of touch, when I was not an invested friend to read, but a read invested in a friend.

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