How to Make Love to a Negro without Getting Tired

The room is awash in dark sweat. The fly has long since joined his comrades in the great beyond. Above, Beelzebub has been appeased. Green garbage-bags litter the middle of the room, their mouths agape. In a box (Steinberg cardboard special), with no semblance of order: a pair of shoes, a box of Sifto iodized salt, turned-up winter boots, a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, books, rolled-up Van Gogh reproductions, pens, a pair of sunglasses, a new ribbon for my old Remington and an alarm clock. Idly, I stow it away in a corner, by the fridge. The sun comes slanting through the window in blades of light.

From How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired by Dany Laferrire, translated by David Homel 2010. Published by Douglas & McIntyre.