Voice Mail

He dialed the numbers from memory...a still fine and perfectly etched set of numbers in his mind that may as well have been the combination to some lock in his brain...it was unforgettable.

He listened to the expected tones of ringing, never expecting her to pick up...and when she didn't and her soft bit of southern-voice started speaking in her voice message he inhaled slightly...like he could breath her in from the distance...

"Hey he started, walking around so that his words flowed naturally and fluidly...like he just had a thought and decided to call...which was of course not true.  She permeated him, his thoughts, his mind, and she saturated him, her memory, her mind and in this morning she was a presence, a weight and he wanted to tell her that...wanted to explain how it enveloped him like a shawl, like a warming cloth that was placed on his neck, soothing, tender.  She was in his bones, well past his head, and he had a tremendous absence that he knew she might be able to replace...even if it was just her voice...even if it was just the ghost speak of an outgoing voice message.  Because even that soft dulcet song of her name and her brief words of being unable to answer the call were enough for him to drink in and continue...enough of a snippet to find him home.  Enough of a noise to pierce his ear and let her fall into his brain and spread slowly against his thoughts. 

She was on his mind this morning...unusually so...and he wanted to share that with her.

I just wanted to say that I was thinking of you.

He hung up.

Almost Summer

Summer was coming…

One could almost feel a glimpse of it in certain afternoons…when the air blew warm and enough green was in the trees to make it feel like it was almost there.

The summer when her hair would curl and she would shower and leave it wet…the tendrils darker than when dry…the scent of soap and scubbed skin still high on her.  He had enveloped her in these moments, crushed her against him, inhaled her and felt the skin upon skin.  When they slightly separated she had left a small wet skim of her against him.

The summer when the storms would darken and cool the air in a violence and then depart suddenly.  Her brief and wonderful interludes with him.

And as he drove home through rain and yellow lights it was washing it away…cold memories.  He wanted the heat of her, the warmth.  The clench.

The summer when a day began with her and an evening slowly ended with her.  There were more moments together…summer days were longer.  Summer days lingered.

In the fast and vast humidity he tasted the salt on the neck, the sugar in her kiss…he wiped away a bead of sweat and watched her chest rise and fall.

The summer was darkened rooms and cool white sheets, the color of snow, the brief reminder of winter until she lay next to him and it was summer again.

The summer when the grass was wet with morning humidity, and you left footprints on the sidewalk.  Her in just his shirt,  barely buttoned, the outline of her hard to detect but the legs were tanned and the color of darkened sand.  Her brief walk to the door.  The padding of her walk across the floor.  Summer was the barefoot walk of the barely clothed.

The summer was new moons, waning…adding light to each day. 

Her simple voice a color to him, adding layers to the light…scented drops in his ear.  Warm, honey soft and colored, barely stirring.  But there.

The summer was a collision of days and nights, with no calendar but rather a sensation of moments and times that blurred and weaved in and out of his memory like the blink and heights of fireflies, signaling and rising in an evening.  Summer was the capture in a mason jar.

The summer was the low warm river at an ebb, smooth warm sand beneath…light reflecting and kaleidoscoping and occasionally you would find a shell, a beautiful pale one that you would store and keep.  You would pull it out in winter, to fold in your hand and remember the water as you plucked it from the river bed and made a reminder out of it.

She was like that…that beautiful pale piece of summer that you tried to hold in your hand and when he looked at it now it was empty.