My Ideal Reading Experience

by Arthur McMaster

and I’ve given this some thought, would likely be a younger me
stretched out in my fading Birdwells under the shade of an old
carob tree on Crete, having just had a long swim in the Aegean,
re–reading nearly any Dickens novel — well, except The Old
Curiosity Shop — a few juicy figs at my fingertips, a chilled bottle
of something lemony nearby, the neighboring cicadas, which can
be ever so distracting, just then behaving in their piney
apartments; a lithe and comely Greek maiden in over–sized
sunglasses occupying a brilliant orange bath towel under the tree
next to mine, she reading Simone de Beauvoir, making winsome
noises, while stealing a glance now and again at me — pretending
to ignore her — she, working up her courage to ask if she might
step over to my anxious camp, bringing, perhaps, something to
remind me of my distant youth.