Esperanto and Lit Matches

The shamble leg man slept with a gypsy who had flies in the seams of her eyes and breathe like spoiled onions. She spoke Romanian and wore goatskin shoes with birds’ talon claps. She claimed to be tutored in tap dancing, a claim he cared not to challenge, and knew how to cut hair with lit matches. Her hair was a covey of twigs and balled string that she twisted into a loose knot at the back of her head. She had a scissor cut just below her right eye and a cyst on the knob of her chin. When she spoke she spoke in gibberish and Esperanto, a consonant wail that deafened his ears. Her eyes were black shale, the sclera pitted with green, the lashes curved inward like apple peals. She had loose skin under her arms; skin boiled until it separated from the bone, a marrow whiteness in the rook of her elbow.