the buddhists call it, i think, the power of a clear mind. that’s a universe and a half away as this mountain of a dominican taxi driver keeps on ostentatiously rubbing his crotch while peppering me with questions. first he asks me in spanish where i’m going. when i told him i’m filipino, that somehow sets him off. do i live alone, he asks me.
st. augustine’s teenage prayer went “ lord, grant me chastity and continence; but not yet.” so quaint, this man from hippo whose mother and mine share the same name.
the driver—his livery id carries a decidedly greek name of praxides—ignores my directions and drives through this neighborhood of sad looking houses. by a junction while waiting for the light, a big dog, unleashed, runs around, as if lost, in a front yard bordered only by withering brown shrubs.