Echoes

 He awoke in the grey that plastered the city in its shawl, pulled up to its chin, trying to kick off the cold of the morning and knowing there would be no sunrise.  There would be no smooth transition from the nighttime to the day.  No handshake of relinquishing the end of something and the new beginning.

He was cold.

And he knew that she wasn't anywhere close.

Surrounded by millions is a bit like being a kid in the McDonald's playpen, surrounded by balls of colors that are just adornments...hoping you don't get infected by something, someone.  High up above the avenues of the city he hoped for quiet...no sirens, no horns.  Just the smooth sounds of the heat perhaps coming on.

In the awakening of an early morning, the brain craves warmth...comfort...peace.  He felt absence...a gap. He wasn't awake enough to clutch the day yet...but he had resigned himself that the sleep was dead.  It was a gray, blank area when the mind becomes singularly focused.

She came into view.

Well, not her per se, but her presence.  Her curves as she lay horizontal...her warmth, her breath.  A small dent in the mattress beside him...a murmur of breathing...asleep.  It was like she could place her hand on his fast beating heart and calm him...that she could pull him into her and become entangled...

He squinted at the clock...4am.

Too early to rise.

He imagined her near...the scent of her hair and her profile...he could almost imagine her breathing patterns and tried to mimic them...be her mirror...he might even tug her over, have her envelope him...maybe hear her murmur something in her sleep.

But in his male mind he ultimately remembered mutterings of her bliss, and when he had pleased her and in the quiet corridors of New York they echoed in his mind, and he craved the sounds in his ear, the dense heat of proximity, the feel of her against him and the way he placed his mouth over hers to quell her to a quietness that he was now listening to in a room with a view.

It was grey outside his window...but in his mind it was a season like summer and he let her burn herself on him like so many orange embers, echoing in his thoughts and limbs and burning into his memory. 

Winter Solstice

 

When the earth reaches its maximum tilt away from the sun...it is furthest from the glow.  It is the same in every departure of hers as his world grew cold each time, a perma-frost that remained until her silhouette broke across his horizon again.

She nestled in his mind like a cat, furled up and warm, curled up and cozy.  She had started out so very small in his world, barely a brick and now had created something extraordinarily beautiful, a cathedral where he could practice his faith in her...his devotion.  His religion.

An art museum, where he could walk echoing stretches of marble flooring and gaze at perspectives of her...lit by memories and painted in permanence that he could revisit time and again...and each time together added new hallways, new facades in this never ending art of her.

An opulent hotel, but with only one large penthouse suite...with a massive claw-foot tub that overlooked massive city lights...an array of scented candles arranged nearby, with steam arising off the waters that would envelope them...the heat of the waters mirroring the heat of her, when immersed in her.  The slight beads of sweat across a brow, the tips of her hair darkening in the water...

A winter cabin, with no internet access or even phone service, with plenty of split firewood ripened to burn...with outdoor flood lights that illuminate a blizzard...a bed by the window laden with heavy blankets and a fridge filled with liquor.  A calendar with a black marker to measure time in days versus hours...and let those hours be spent together, engulfed in conversation and quietness.

A porch at sunset, oriented to the west, with a bottle of bourbon and a bucket of ice.

A towel on a beach.

The agonizingly empty places that existed when not together...but when together, anywhere, would embody all the places he ever wished he could be.

Good Morning

You say good morning to strangers...you politely await the glance, the brief recognition that their eyes are locked on yours, even if just for the briefest of moments...although if they glance away you only need to nod your head in acknowledgment...but if they linger a bit past a second and maybe even start to cock a smile then you unleash it with full intent.

And there is only so much time for this window of greeting...I don't think people generally say good afternoon or good evening...they say goodnight when closing a child's door or when hanging up the phone after dinner.  It is a hopeful term where as good afternoon/evening are polite bit of rhetoric that could be solved by merely saying hello or hi.

She liked to say hi, at all hours.  First thing in the morning or when we came up for air after an elongated kiss.

It was a friendly greeting, simple and intimate.  Probably the shortest way to say something but it carried in her tone something so much deeper...almost to the point where you felt like it was exclusive to you.

and it usually was because she saved it for when there was no distance between us...and we had come to find ourselves there...interlocked, intertwined.  Like we had discovered a reveal...unraveled a bow around a box and found sudden treasure.

It wasn't a code we spoke...although at times he had to pull words out of her like hard steel nails rusted into weathered wood.  But over time words occasionally spilled unexpectedly, a break in a dam...and he grasped for them like one attempts to catch water or rain...an impossible feat but he could feel tiny bits hitting his hands and his fingers but mostly they fell away and soon evaporated.

And there was the one time, the first time...when she calmly asked do you wanna make love?

As casual as asking to pass the salt, as comfortable as asking to turn up the heat...but in this case the spice and the source of warmth were her and it was an offering...no shyness, no ambiguity.  Declarative.  Yet in her soft spoken notes it was gentle and affirming.  She already knew the answer.  But hearing it inside my mind I finally did catch the rain, I finally clutched the water and I got to hold it in my hands and consume it, breathe it in, bask in it...and it wasn't even really a question as much as it was an invitation.

An Episode

She opened the door slightly, her hair up and she was leaning through

the brief gap in the

doorframe…

she smiled and opened it up wider, revealing that she was wearing a

robe.

She walked slowly towards the mirror, the robe gaping in parts…

tiny glimpses

of a Christmas package being slowly unwrapped…he sat on the

edge of the bed,

saw her and her reflection intertwine like an upside down v

as she applied colors and powders…she would

occasionally glance at him and raise an eyebrow. 

It was like a dare. 

Somewhere inside of him,

like a click of metal upon metal, a spark bloomed

into a pilot light blaze.

Outside the bathroom in the expansive space some music played,

too low to

hear the words but enough to be noticeable.

One table lamp was on,

lighting up a tiny corner of the room where

the rest of it was in a glow

from the late afternoon sun spilling in from the

large window. 

Near the bed two candles burned in tiny whites and yellows. 

The space felt like a spa and her proximity

made it even more languid…

her movements were liquid, like she was underwater…

from his view she fluttered in and out of the scene,

a ballet of preparation…

and he caught parts of her scent, her lotions and perfume. 

She smelled clean, the entire room felt showered and

scrubbed and her glances were

lingering upon him as much as

the soap sensation he inhaled.

She came to him and leaned down to kiss him. 

A demure bit of a hint. 

Something portending.  The whiff of copper

before a lightning strike.

Her mouth was warm and relaxed…it was a greeting. 

But her eyes had been open and they

squinted something more inviting…

a bit more promising.

If she was a recipe she was the

type handed down from a southern

grandmother’s hand…old school

cursive with lard as a critical

ingredient and a loving amount of

measurements poured out from

memory versus math….

the heft and feel of flour or a rolling pin

that had seen its days…

perfection handed down via generations,

never skimping or deviating but

rather just evolving slowly until

the taste on the tongue was perfection…

each and every time.

If she were to be a rain storm she would

be in August, in the heat

of summer after an oppressive afternoon

with low dark rumbles

starting to echo in the outskirts of an evening…

a relief effect of

anticipating the cooling impact upon arrival…

when the lights in

the house blink on and off due to the interruptions…

the flash-bulb moments and the near immediate thunder…

concussive….

the smell of the rain and the noise on the roof…

you felt safe inside but were amazed at the

rawness outside…

and when you slowly succumbed to your

bed the splashing and

winds became calming…

white noise that helped you to sleep.

If she was a season she would be Fall…

mercurial, at times like an

Indian Summer, blooming after a

season of heat and signaling the

temperate ways of cool mornings

yielding to warm afternoons…

they type of day you want to start

with in bed, layers of covers

and then emerge to a gauzy fog

only to have the sun burn through it…

and be warm upon the bricks of a stoop…

meanwhile,

the colors exploding around you,

twirling to the ground

and a thousand versions of

red and orange ultimately

turning to the color of her brown eyes.

He leaned back on the bed,

smelled the candle

burning its scent into the air,

the afternoon yellowing

through the window and the soft music playing.

He had found perfection.

Crisp

 I am your fall.

I fuel the sugary sap within you, the pulse of you across your limbs, the oxygen you create as you take my toxic air within and breathe out the impurities of me.

I fill your mind with a thousand leaves, brightly and brilliantly colored...and then, soon, I become a memory...flicked from your fingers to lie at your feet in tiny shades that mirror sunrises and sunsets...and lay there, quietly...until somebody else walks by, crushing tiny spines and crackling in the crisp of a season.

Or perhaps gathered into handfuls and put into a burn-pit...smoldering like the way I burn for you.  Inhaling a scent only known in an October or November.  This is the scent of a harvest time, when a world is turning...a decay that is beautiful and quickening.  

It is the way the sun shimmers in the branches and remaining leaves of a treeline that was once all shade...like a whittled down forest that loses its protective coverings...stick-figures where once full bodies stood.

I want to cling to you, clutch you.  I want to open up like an unfurled leaf craving the sun...veins of me rich with your light...

But I fear I am soon seasonal...in a bit of blaze I tumbleweed down and join the forest floor...but I am grateful as I gaze upwards at your arms, knowing I was once embraced...and perhaps I can return some day in a spring that reminds me of the endless season that I find in you.

Jazz

 Here...

He walked into the room where she was reading, comfortably on the couch...somewhere Sonos was playing some light instrumentals...she looked up and saw he had a bag from a fairly exceptional boutique.

What's that? she said.

He set the bag down next to her and she pivoted and put down her magazine.  She pulled out the crepe paper and pulled out an ivory dress that came out of the bag like a long rope.

For tonight, he said...and don't wear a bra.

It had rained that evening and the streets were reflective and starting to shudder with the first sparse evenings near fall...it was a combination of humidity and chill, and it made her hair curly up a bit.  Stepping out of the Uber he took her hand and she unfolded out of the seat...she was stunning and somewhat hunched as she got out and then, standing straight up she turned to him slightly.

She looked down at herself.

Well....I guess this will make quite an entrance.

He half smiled...nodding. Thank you for allowing me to dare was all he said.

He brought her into him in a clutch, smelling her soap and shampoo...and kissed her where her hairline met the back of her neck.  She turned towards him and her mouth was the warmest part of her body and the street was wet with recent rain and the evening smelled scrubbed and it was if they both were completely undressed but they were amongst strangers to they behaved.

There was a short walk to the entrance with the yellow lights carving into the sidewalk...the entrance where sounds spilled out and you could hear the high tapping of a cymbal and the low drone of a saxophone...and entering it, whispering his name to the maitre de, who accepted his folded bills and nodded and drew them down towards a table near the stage.

He remembered something he had read...and wished he had written it himself...as he sat down next to her, the darkened room filled with strangers and a common desire...the scent of cigarette smoke and he wished he had remembered to buy her a pack and watch her...it was one of his favorite views...anyways...he recalled the passage...

Jazz, at its very core, is sex. The one begs the other. Harmonic tension, rhythmic tension, and even melodic tension, followed by release matches the feel of the moment, passion and unrest bent up inside a person before the ultimate and sudden exhale.

so he watched her settle in...

Thought about her begs...which she never did and never would...if anything it would be him to her.  But the tension...he loved it.

He watched her reach into her purse and watched her pull out a pack of Marlboro lights...she glanced at him like seeking approval as this was a rarity...but her wearing a clingy gauze outfit that showcased her nipples was already pushing the norm so there was no need to do anything other than nod...so she unfurled the plastic and pulled delicately on one single thin cigarette to extract from the box.

(Now in his past his father has smoked and he had a zippo lighter that opened with a click and you thumbed the little circle and a flame was created...in this moment he knew he had missed an awful opportunity to pull something out of his suit pocket and unleash a flame, perhaps her hand touching his slightly as she pulled it close to alight her, her first inhales as the embers glowed a fast deep orange and a few puffs of smoke that she tried to blow away from him)

Instead she pulled out a box of matches so he reached across and took them from her, snapped one of them against the side and produced a flame...but she did take his hand and pull it towards her...an extremely intimate moment as she brought the fire near her face, regarding him the whole time...the few inhalations, exhalations and she sat back and he withdrew, waving the match extinct into a smoking little black stick.

The evening played on, the sounds conjuring up just a world that was contained inside the room...the sweat of the musicians, the smell of cigarette smoke, the occasional sounds of ice in a glass...she was smoking again but she had slid closer to him and was resting against him...they kept ordering drinks and a few bits of food and when she had leaned over to kiss him she tasted of jazz...a combination of something assembled, her senses and her wants, her evening and her letting go, her trust and her tiny, tiny hints of something that was present just underneath her skin but goddamn there were other people in the room.

The uber ride home was quiet and she slept.  He actually helped her out of the car and with one arm around her he led her upstairs and made the decision to let her sleep in the cling of the dress.  He got her a water and took off her shoes.  She murmured some things and she told him how relaxed she felt.  

He put her into bed and he aligned upon her as she lay on her side.  He whispered some words into her ear and he could feel her smile.

Plucked

 

Goddamn have I missed you.

Not in a distance or sequence kind of way...but in a lost-limb type of absence...a bottom of a glass reaction to a memory that had once filled it completely.  

I breathe you in, the scent of a city in its sweat-stained summer'd past, with the first tendrils of Fall starting to spill into the mornings, a coolness along the avenues that rides on breezes that brush past you like strangers on a sidewalk.

I taste you, the air of you...the inhalation of streets and windows where pasta boils on a stove and street-vendors mix concoctions and the mix of scents is distinctly yours...

I remember a tub, filled to the brim with warming waters...a delicate step into it and a leg sliding past the surface...a spill of water onto the tile as I joined...the skin upon skin and the steam blurring your face slightly and your hair turning darker in the water...the tendrils turning like leaves in the Fall.

I remember the faces of strangers, figures and stares, laughter and aloofness...worries and doubt at times, complete joy at times...a mix, a cacophony of noises and reactions to a city with labored breathing.

I try but completely fail at conjuring up you in my mind...I cannot quite get the fullness of you in person, the sound of your quiet voice, the darkness of your eyes, the warmth from just being in the same place as you, the pull of gravity keeping me from looming over you, the ache of a distance and the memory failing to remember, to replace...so I get pieces, shards and fragments that pierce my memory and I gather them like a puzzle pushed onto the floor, disconnected and misshaped.   

Until I see you again.

And then, as if I am plucked from the very part of where I was I return.  We return.

And the parts of me that fit the parts of you find themselves familiar again.

And surrounded by millions of people we don't even notice them.  Because you are enough for me to capture and keep in a singular lens, plucked from the others to rest my gaze and fold into me.

Ailments

 

No...no.  Her voice was muffled as he stood over her, her face buried in a pillow already a bit wet from fever, her hair scattered across it and the covers pulled up to her neck.

I need to take your temperature he said, one hand on the mattress...he was above her, had left her alone after she woke up early complaining of a sore throat and potential fever...but it had broken and now he just needed to know if she had something simple or yet another fucking Covid positive reaction.

Look, if you want I'll pull up the covers from below and just stick it in your butt.

Her head turned slightly...no fucking way came out from her muffled voice.  She turned further to face him, her cheeks a bit scarlet and stuck out her tongue.  

He started to move towards her with the thermometer...

wait she said...I'll do it myself...don't want you screwing up putting it in my mouth.

That really hasn't been a problem in the past he smiled.

You're not made of glass and mercury dumbass...she took the thermometer and pulled it into her lips.

She said something but he couldn't understand.  She pulled out the thermometer....don't make this sexual.

He left the room to let her be.

He brewed tea for her...Green and then maybe Chamomile as they both were softest on her throat...he thought about broaching her taking a Covid test but then decided he'd wait...she had plans...travel, friends, etc and he decided how she was treated, regardless of ailment, was the most important thing he could do.

He also brewed up some chicken soup, deciding if he was going to become a cliche he was going to go all in...that she would need some protein.

He also ordered a bunch of Pedialyte from an online delivery store...he felt like he was covering all his bases.

He walked back in.

101.

Really?

Yeah...she held up the thermometer like an offending object and rolled back over on her stomach.

I brought you some tea...and...some soup.

Soup?

uhm, yeah...chicken noodle?

For breakfast?

I thought it would be easier on your throat if it was sore.

Is that a sexual joke again?

Actually no...but now that I think about it I wish I could have delivered it with a bit better flair...but it's hard to talk to the back of your head.

She rolled onto her back...her hair in her face, a bit dampened with sweat.  The sides of her nostrils were red and her voice sounded like gravel.  But to him she exuded a grace and an elegance...adorned in a nightgown and high cotton covers, she was like a furled up flower.

Better? she posed.

Yes...so here...he brought forward the tea...he plumped up another pillow and as she raised up he placed it behind her.  Better? he posed.

She nodded, taking the tea and take slight sips...she winced a little, hinting at the soreness in her throat but it seemed to also sooth at the same time.  

He looked at the cup of soup, steaming in the morning air.

Do you think you want something to eat?

Again she just shook her head no, holding the tea with both hands...

okay, why don't I let you try to get back to sleep.  Again, a nod...thank you she uttered...a faint hint of her normal lilt.  He nodded back and walked backwards out the door, making sure he watched her the whole way so she knew he was watching her.  Over her.

He checked on her a few minutes later...she was asleep, her hand holding the empty cup on top of the covers...she was breathing normally and her hair was sweatier than before.  He went over and quietly moved the cup out of her hand...she murmured a little and he bent over her and kissed her where her hairline met her forehead...it was salty.  He had tasted the salt of her in his past, knew it like a fragrance and spoke against her skin to go back to sleep...she nodded slightly, turned from him and put her face down into the pillows.  He pulled up the covers as far as he could and left her, padding her where he imagined her ass was beneath the blankets.  

His phone dinged with a text.  He reached for it.

You can come in now.  It was from her.

After leaving her asleep he had gone to the store and gotten her sunflowers freshly cut, large like two feet in height...he also got her Virginia peanuts and salty caramel chocolate. He added some chocolate ice cream.  And then waited.

He entered the doorway with the flowers and the bag of food...she was sitting up in the bed, the scarlet in the cheeks subsided...her hair was dry and the covers were around her waist.  Her eyes were shining and he knew she felt better.

Where the fuck is my soup?

She smiled and he knew that she definitely felt better.

He placed the bag next to her and put the flowers along the bedside.

I'll go get it.

Wait...she patted the bed next to her.  He walked over and sat.  Her eyes went back and forth to his...they were alive...and she held up her mouth to him.  He placed his on hers, just letting gravity compress them...meeting in an alignment...nothing sexual but also nothing benign...it was like a human moment, and intimate.  He pulled back.

Thank you she said, her voice much better.

He nodded...anytime.

Breaking the Fast

 It starts inexorably slowly...the way the light in the room subtly leaks like a spill of a whiteness, the flickering of eyelids and the quietness that remains.

Untangling from you, covered in layers of cottons and you pull away and turn to the other side and continue to slumber...it is actually my favorite part of the start...not because I am pulling away but because I spent the entirety of the evening alongside of you and I get to do it again in a few hours.

I can usually tell the hour by the height of the sun behind the trees...before 7 it hasn't risen above them...after 7 it has...it is rare that I miss that window unless it's raining and clouds prevent that sun-clock..

The long pad into the kitchen...my feet quiet and the house feels like itself is still trying to remain asleep...no lights, no noises...

The smell of coffee brewing is the first hint that the evening is over...there is a specific brew that you enjoy and I usually have to go to multiple stores before I find the rare brand...but that little effort, that tiniest of gestures is just a reminder for you.

I usually get about half an hour alone before you emerge and I usually try to stay still and listen to the morning from the screened in porch...the roosters from a nearby farm announcing that it is time to get up...a donkey brays and slowly, like the stretch of a cat...the day begins.

I love the waking you...the tussled hair, the slow blink of your eyes, the husk in your voice...the way you come at me in a straight-line to accept your cup and then kiss me softly...you are not quite fully awake, what the military would call Before Morning Nautical Twilight...your cotton shirt hanging so...

You drink with both hands, pulling it up to your mouth and sipping...you glance outside to the outdoor kitchen where I have started several slices of bacon and you arch your eyebrow a bit.

BLTs is all I say and you smile behind the cup.

I've already also turned on the Sonos...finding the Gregory Alan Isokov channel and his familiar folksy voice becomes the soundtrack to our daybreak.

I am outside tending to the skillet of sizzling bacon and I feel you come up behind me, one arm around my front and you rest your chin on my shoulder...you smell of sleep and coffee and I know that in a few minutes your mind will take over and you'll get caught up in your day.

But for now...in this sweet quiet moment we are intertwined again, wanting to merely pause the sweep of the minute hand on the clock and feel the rhythm of your breathing against me.

daguerreotype

I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel

-The Cure

He stumbled upon a picture of her...like encountering her on a sunny side of the street...full daylight and there she was...instantaneous...unfiltered.  

Endorphins, as though the plunge of a needle of adrenalin was suddenly inserted directly into his mind.  And every closeted and dusted emotion spilled out of the drains in his mind and flooded...it was almost painful in the poignancy of his dust-bin world piling upon itself in a matter of seconds...

Her.

The dismal secret is that she remained so photogenic in his memories...and remained so with the proof in the picture...a casual pirate-smile that resembled the crescent moon in a sunrise...a sky the color of dreamsicle...a taste he had never possessed but only imagined.

Until it happened.  

The briefest of encounters, an exception that proves the rule...the reason songs are written and poems mouthed.

A tussle, if you will, a coming together.  An earnestness...a revealing.

But in the collision of humans it was disruptive...it jarred a bit of him to wander free...a tiny piece that had been a part of him prior and was now in the wake of her in an afterwards...floating in a bloodstream and unable to capture or return.  

It infiltrated his dreams...and in certain songs.  The memory of her smudged upon him like a surreptitious bit of lipstick stolen at a party kiss...and it wouldn't come off despite valiant attempts.  

All he knew was when her image appeared in the picture he was unprepared for his response...the sudden  stoppage of his breathing and the heavy cluster in his chest.  

He think she was satisfied with him...in an unexpected way...not like a stranger but rather as a familiar...a comfort who she could confide in, allow herself to immerse and connect at an unvarnished level...no pretense...just presence and a moment or two.  Alone.

Flint like.  Sparks and such.

Not usually experienced and unexpected...

The way Civil War portraits captured an image but couldn't quite capture the person...he carried her image and reacted to her picture knowing full well it would never be adequate to quite capture her.

 

Another Summer

 He felt that Summer was her true season, a least when she could show her skin, mix in some colors and allow her tan lines to show where something else had touched her...seared into her and left its mark.

Sun drenched.

They had met in a winter, covered in clothes and layers and she had allowed only a very tiny, slow unveiling as the days barely got warmer...a glacial pace of revealings...mostly thoughts, some paragraphs of words...utterances...and definitely not skin.

But they both loved the beach...and this intersection of places allowed him to imagine...and he set his mind on becoming a bit of sand in her shoe, a slight irritant but present and lingering...and hoping it might turn into a pearl vs. something causing her to stop, take off her sandals and shake them until he tumbled back to earth.

In the warmth of the cumulus of the sea salt air, the strands of her hair found new life and directions...forming lovely contrails that surrounded her face and danced and moved like tides...

and she remained mystery-like as he began to know her, like the shimmering air above a highway baked in the sun...what shape, what structure...hurtling towards a spot in the road and upon arrival there is only the colors of the...road.

There are longer hours in a summer day...the slow spoil into an evening...the way the world devolves into a color that is closer to the color of her eyes.  The sounds of cicadas buzz-sawing into the night air...a random firefly...a splinter of a moon.

And there are storms and dust-ups that randomly occur...but for them, it wasn't ever cataclysmic....rather it was smoldering...maybe thunder in a distance but not in any danger...

He remembered a time when the strap of her bathing suit slid off of her shoulder...she had turned slightly and it fell off and slid down past a freckle...and in his mind he counted time...waiting for her to restore it back into place...but she didn't move...it lingered, like as if somebody had suddenly said a word that hung in the air and waited for a response...and so it stayed there like a tease and he was begging for it to slip even further.  Years further in the future the comfort with which she easily removed her top was a sharp contrast to that first summer...

And the water...the waves...the foam in the green.  The taste of the ocean was a narcotic of the season...warm, salty...it was a kiss in a wide-opened mouth...and he entered it again and again, plunging his head beneath the waters...the sudden quiet after the noise of the surf...

He entered into her ocean occasionally...and it was as hot as the asphalt outside of a 7-11 in the height of July...

At times, he would reach down and actually touch the parking lot and it would burn slightly and he would be reminded of her.

Sunday...Laze

 

She looked beautiful asleep.

He opened his eyes and she was facing towards him, her hands near her chin, her head tilted downwards and a thin line of her lips perfectly still...her angles framed against the cotton were delicate and he wondered if he dare move to disturb her.

Fuck it, he thought...not wanting to be some weird stare-fest until she opened her eyes...he slid slowly across the bed and put his feet on the floor...padding away looking for his tee shirt and shorts which were ejected at some point last night.

He found them, turned to make sure she was still asleep and quietly left her.

The kitchen was far from the bedroom so he turned on the lights and hit the Sonos...lofi music quietly filled the room as he turned on the coffee maker and started pulling items from the fridge.  The screened in porch next to the kitchen had a full range and gas burner so he rummaged around and found one of his cast iron skillets.  He set it on the outdoor burner and went back inside to grab his coffee.

Outside the world was blinking itself awake...the sun was still low behind the trees and the windows were glazed with water from the humidity.  It was still relatively cool though and across the many woods he heard the neighbor's farm beginning its day...a rooster called and a donkey brayed in its stall.  Other than that it was perfectly quiet.

Except for his music.

He grabbed the plastic wrap of bacon and pulled four slices out and put them into the skillet, turned the gas on low and sipped his coffee...the bacon was the most straightforward of the items to cook but it also required a bit of precision...done too early and it was limp...left on too long it was too stiff...he had to monitor so that it was perfectly pliable and would bend slightly when perfectly cooked...

He heard the padding of feet and turned to see her coming into the kitchen...he had already left her cup of coffee ready to be poured and he watched her move towards the machine...she was wearing one of his tee shirts that just came down below her ass...he couldn't tell until she turned towards him if she was wearing a bra...she turned slightly and in her silhouette he saw that she wasn't.  

Good morning he said and she turned towards him...taking a sip of coffee she merely raised her eyebrows in a gesture that to him sounded like I remember last night...at least that is what he interpreted.  She came towards him, the tee shirt swaying against her.

Good morning back to you...and she closed the distance and gave him a kiss, her lips warm from the coffee.  She looked at the bacon in the skillet and closed her eyes...that smells good.

He kissed her on the cheek in a symbolic "I've got to continue cooking" move and turned off the burner...he went back inside and grabbed the tomato...he had gotten it a few days ago from the farmer's market...heavy, thick and ripe from summer.  He sliced it into four thin circles and wrapped up the rest of it and put it back into the fridge.

How do you feel?

He heard her question as she returned to the inside kitchen...

Uhh...hungover?  

He heard her laugh...and reveal me too.  

I've got some champagne...or prosecco he offered...but she just shook her head and held up her coffee cup.

I'm good.

He nodded and went into the pantry for the bread...the toaster was already out.

What's this music she asked, looking down at the speaker.

Uh, lofi...it's like really good for studying...or cooking.

It sounds like it's fucking music.

He stopped in whatever it was he was doing.  What?

She grinned.  You heard me.

Yeah...I guess I'll have to play it next time.

She nodded and went and sat down...tucking the tee shirt into her lap and crossing her legs.  Are you almost done?

He put the four slices of toast into the toaster...yeah, almost.  You hungry?

Starving.

He glanced over at her, the steam of the coffee rising against her, the tee shirt laying against her except in two distinct points and her eyes still puffy from not enough sleep...her hair was tussled and fell across her face in a way that could only be described as haphazard beauty...and she looked completely at ease...but in her own little way still demanding...asking to be pleased by him...even if in this case it was taking care of her hunger.  Food hunger...unlike the kind she displayed last night.

what, she asked...

He shook his head...nothing.  The toaster sprung and the pieces came out perfectly...browned but not too well done....he spread a smear of Miracle Whip across two of them...he laid down a slice of tomato on each of the pieces of toast and then put butter lettuce on each one as well.  Two of the pieces of toast got 2 slices of bacon and he assembled the BLTs...he put hers on a plate and took it to her.  She moved slightly and he saw she was naked beneath the tee shirt.

Can I get more coffee? she asked, holding the cup to him...of course he said and grabbed the empty one and went to pour her another.  

Do you mind if I eat, she said, and he could tell she already had a mouthful of food and it made him laugh.

Of course not...please.  He poured her another cup, added cream and brought it to her.  She was halfway finished...and looked a little embarrassed.

sorry, she mumbled, again, a bite of the bacon in her mouth.  

He went back to the kitchen and brought back a lone piece of bacon.  Here...bartenders call these "the residuals"...the leftovers of a martini still in the shaker after being poured...good bartenders will save it until you've taken a few sips and then add it to the drink to finish it off.

She nodded, taking it in...taking a bite of the bacon...the residuals, she said, chewing...I like that.

At this point the sun had crested the trees and the yellow air was warm and lazing...the kitchen smelled of bacon and coffee...somewhere a clock indicated it was some sort of time.  They ate across from each other, and she left nothing but crumbs on her plate...her eyes now brighter...she was more awake.

This music...she said slightly...lowly.

what about it?

She stood up, taking her plate and his, setting it down on the table nearby.

She came to him, very close and pulled the tee shirt over her head...she crumbled it into a ball and tossed it to the side...in the morning golden light she was revealing...and she was vulnerable...and she was telling him that she was offering him a chance to start the day in the same way they ended the night.

Good morning, he started before she had smothered him in a kiss that wasn't lazy at all.

Scents & Silhouettes

 She rarely wore perfume...rarely adorned herself with anything except the simple lotions and potions from her morning...but there was an alchemy, her skin and the liquid applied and it bloomed like a flower to a bee...and if I happened upon her and grew impolitely close I could tell...I could detect.  Perhaps she had merely applied for herself...but a glaze against me...the way that bees generate static electricity, and upon landing on a flower upset the balance of pollen and it attracts and clings...and I go about my day, awash in the pollen of you, forgetting other flowers because I am filled with you.

Other times it infused upon my clothes...this scent rubbed into me...carrying the masculine part of me and the beguiling portion of you...I would smell it on my tee shirt...the thin layer between us...the friction upon us and you rubbing into me like a child furiously crushing a crayon against paper...leaving tiny bits of colors and wax and marking me...only for me to find later the delicate drawings that you had left on me...nicks, marks...the scent of you in an afternoon.  The delicate delicious sweat of you.

That rare, vintage collection of inhalations that were altogether familiar but foreign as well because they didn't happen daily...perhaps not even monthly...but perhaps just once it happened it became a beacon, a return that I could gladly find in the dark, despite a distance or a calendar...a beckoning...the vampire-like desire only growing in proximity...if I should be so lucky.

And in that proximity it is also easy to admit the outline...the shape...forged as strong as if honed by a blacksmith but that simple shape of you that I can detect from afar...the fit you make in my lens...the familiar, even from a great distance.  The simple silhouette...the walk, the gait...the hair, the shape.

I can see you coming.  I have seen you coming.  One so near, one from afar. But the same delicate shape, the plunge into the forest of flowers and instantly recognizable as unique.

It is the shape of you coming towards me, and in my mind I can already detect the scent of you...it is in the collision of us that my memory flares and the static electricity between us merely allows the pollen of you fall upon the parts of me that I can take away and be reminded of you when I am far away.

City

 It was raining in New York...the city.

It was like hot dog water...cloudy, mixed with scents and smells and while it washed away the streets it just made it a slippery mix of grime and parts of the city that would remain unwashed despite the deluge.

She was far.

Plucked felt like the most appropriate word...pulled from him.  It was always amazing how this city of over 8 million people and hundreds of skyscrapers could make him miss her even more...like the most benign of things...the way she formed words, the way she had the low laugh...visiting this city was the road-rash burn of the skin of his heart that had scabbed over...only to fall in exactly the same spot and bring blood again.

It was an itch...it was clawing from inside...to not be surrounded by strangers but rather the heat of her proximity.  Like the sand inside the clam that makes the pearl...let us be cloistered by the entirety of the ocean and spend time together...ages...and yield something beautiful...jewel-like.

Against this backdrop of a city...this spitting rain, making the streets blacker, the horizons grayer...the color of steel-wool...with just a simple drink in a quiet bar it felt like hell...a dismantled disorganized world that was filled with unfamiliar faces and nameless people.  All around him.

She felt fresh to him.  Not like a touch but an envelopment.  Swaddling.

That type of clutch that you look back upon...a long goodbye...just prior when you press your body...you pull one into you...fully clothed or whatever...that so-long at the airport...right before departures.  It is just a second longer than appropriate because it is meant to convey the inappropriate.

She was light upon him...not in a flashlight sense but in a dimmed one...turned low into an evening...when the room goes from yellows to mellow.  The way the room goes dark as one undresses...the lingering shadows more revealing than intended...the sweet simple fashion of two in bed going to sleep and a reach-over to the lamp to allow them to join in the dark.

She was a presence...a small weight beside.  A brush against in a hallway...hands grazed.  The weight of a stare.

She was time...passing it when near like micro-seconds only to feel whole decades when apart...not even seasonal like snow and fall...the time of a firefly in a summer evening.

She was far...and as spit rattled down upon the city he heard sirens and horns of a thousand others who couldn't even imagine the way the night might have been.

Descriptions

 

Describe me...it came out between the comfortable silence of two who could reside in silence comfortably...for long periods of time.  Minutes...maybe not hours...but with a storm approaching on a Sunday evening, wrecking the evening of humidity and high heat coupled with the already few amounts of drinks consumed it became a more complicated response.

Like your height? he said, knowing in the darkening light she held a firm tight lip, a disappointed shake of a head...her hair shimmering in the shake.  She didn't respond.

So he walked over towards the window where the last light of the afternoon was spilling in...already warmed up from the vodka...the mercurial elixir that freed his words from their bonds.

When I first began to know you...you were elusive.  Slippery...like a mermaid if that makes any fucking sense...I heard about you...knew about you, but every time I tried to see you...meaningfully see you, it was always a partial glimpse...and that just built the beauty.  Brick by little brick...I had this image of you...of what I thought you might be like...and with every almost-encounter it just kept getting larger.  I knew you existed but couldn't prove it.  Like some sort of mythical creature...snippets...that's what I got.

He watched the paparazzi sky light up with its flashbulbs...growing closer.

But then I got to know you...I got to see you...every day.  And I got to know you deeper...got to see your layers...your hardened outside shell.  

Like a turtle? she said, sounding annoyed...

No...no. More like a malt ball...this delicious outside layer...that was sweet and protective...

ok was all she said.

look...this is really hard he continued....it's like exploring you is like visiting some undiscovered land...it's a place of indescribable beauty...of new sights and smells...

Smells? again she asked...

Yes...do you know how fucking clean you always smell?  Like I can pass you by or pull you into me and you smell like a field of cotton...you smell like you have always been air-dried by a summer breeze...you don't smell like lotions or potions...you smell...human...you smell feminine...it is not flowery or sprayed upon...it is real...like skin that is capable of sweat and tears and tautness...you are an actual thing...an actual presence.

He moved a little closer to her...he was within a grasp...he merely just raised his glass towards her...she held hers up and gently clinked hers to his.  It was astonishingly loud despite the uproar going outside.

He continued...I love the word affection....it is an old word, probably just short of love...but that is what I love most about how you make me feel...it is, to go back to the landscape description...just when I think I have visited or seen all I've needed to see...you reveal just something more...like a new color...a new flavor.  Something I've never tried...yet it's the same person in front of me...always changing.  It is fresh...it is inviting...beckoning even.  I don't know.

The clouds were forming and gathering...coupling...pushing rain out of themselves and mixing and matching in a bit of thunder and lightning.

Every day...every evening...you take something so commonplace and just because you put it on, just because you mention it, just because it is associated with you it becomes infinitely unique.  It turns into something that cannot be replaced or duplicated.  I don't know.

Rain was almost there...starting to spit a little, the wind smelling full of it...almost breezing...not yet gusting...

every storm almost sounds the same, but each one is different...in tempo, in noise...in the lightning...the spread of thunder.  It's like a little bit of you but more so in how to describe you...indescribable...like comparing you to a thunderstorm...everybody has their own definition but when they see it up close it is more impactful than they remember.

So I'm loud? she offered, but he could hear a lightness in her talk.

Well...you can be...when I'm bringing storms to you.

Fair, she said...he heard her put her drink down as thunder crackled around them. 

Please go get me another drink and tell me more...she said it as the rain began to fall...around them...a unique storm but like all the hundreds of millions that happened it was time for it to surround them.  

He went in and started to look for ice.  He wasn't sure if she was happy or not but he hoped so.

Resting Here with Me

 Slow down your day...slow down your breathing.

Please...do not hurry away.  Please do not leave.

Please stay.

The opening of a morning with a creamy yellow sky and a rise of warmth against a window pane.

Awake in a morning with white pillows and covers, coverlets...alone in the ecstasy of memories of you in between...these sheets, these skin upon skin moments...please do not extract...please do not withdrawal.

Let my fingers graze yours.

Let my gaze linger.

Let the world become smaller, a room, a bed...a universe of entanglement that is deliciously small. The length of you astride a length of me.

There is a world outside that waits to pounce...it brings worries...stress, bills to pay, a few things to pick up at the market.

A key into an ignition to carry you away.

A gentle pull upon your wrist to pin you gently to the surface tension of a bed...a sheet.

I count the countdown of your mind to the minutes that you are counting down.

The streets fill with cars and noise, the crumple of traffic that allows strangers to wallow in silence and head towards drudgery...to wallow in sameness...the same damn thing every day...every hour.  To hit repeat again and again.

The sun will arc and create shadows...the light in the room will glaze over and become discreet...our presence in a shadow feels familiar...we recognize our outlines...our shapes.

Order us some drinks.

Let us partake.

Whatever it takes to alleviate the slight stress of the day...let it spill out amongst us.

The sun slices between limbs and leaves...it spills and scatters...it signals an end.  A day gone.  Mostly.

But damn the peace in our bodies...like matchsticks they connect and conjure.  Ignite.

The day blurs into a gray and eventually a black and all we do is find the sun in each of each other and yearn for the return of something warm and something we can wrap ourselves into...and it is warm.

It is warm.  We. 

Suture

 The evening is cleaved open, cut right in half with a horizon bleeding out colors as the heartbeat sun tumbles unseen and away, pulling the last strands of daylight into the blackening line that is merely called the West...it is a pencil drawn line from left to right and nothing much happens after the last shred of color finally caves in.

He was decidedly unhappy, watching the light reverse the dawn and fall across the low country of Virginia.  Nothing made him particularly happy...not even the drink in his hand.  He didn't want to admit it but he was at least toying with the idea.

She sutured him.

She closed him up.  All the bits and pieces of the day, the glass shards of stress, the mind-numbing sameness...she flushed them out and quickly sewed him shut, disallowing any return of the grit...the dark colored snow pushed to the sides of the highway, ugly with salt and road sludge.  

He remembered one time when they were driving in Carsley...passing the Methodist church...she was younger, a passenger in a boy's car and they hadn't strayed outside the lines....but as they passed, in the warmth of a sunset she mentioned she'd like to be married there.

So long ago.

He liked to return to that car ride now and again...just the innocent juices of two teens mingling in the minds where no actual physical touch had yet happened.  It was the imagination that was the most beguiling...the unknown...the seduction of what might be...

Until the plain tipped...and she wasn't there as much...seasonal.  Blooming.  He occasioned upon her...and she stood out like the roses grown wild around some abandoned house...flowering, contrasting...making everything ugly beside her regardless...and she didn't notice until he told her.

But she was the salve...her own quiet, unremarkable presence that mattered way more than he intended.  She wrapped him as easily as a bandage...some friction envelopment that staved off a bleed...was like a finger or a hand wrapped around his...

It was often in the evenings when he allowed the door to his quiet mind get opened...a quiet squeal of a doorknob that opened into a dusty room....the raising of a shade facing the east in the morning, a yellowish bright light that spilled in accordingly.

She invaded his thoughts like that...and as much as he tried to push them away with a wave of bourbon they persisted...her voice in the car talking about a ceremony in the church, the way she slide across the car to kiss him, the way she glanced over her shoulder to smile at him in a departure...close-lipped grin like sharing a secret.

It burned when she left...each and every time...like a quick flare if you graze a cigarette accidentally.   A slight red spot, a burn...skin.

And her return...a milky glaze across said burn, a lotion to soothe...a wound to suture...a clench around the pain that numbed.  

He sipped the last bits of bourbon and set the drink down with an echo of crystal against wood...in the quiet it sounded louder...emptier.  

He felt bled out.  He needed her nearby to feel something.  Anything.

Digestive Juices

 

He loved to watch her eat...it was a rarity given how distances kept them apart so when together the priority was in being as close as possible to each other and that was usually frowned upon in restaurants.  But the occasion did occur and he remembered each time how much he enjoyed it...

the delicate hold of the fork, the arc movement of her arm to bring her hand towards her mouth, the slight opening of it and the quick disappearance of the food...her slight chew and then the process would repeat itself....she would usually move the napkin across her lips despite not needing to and fold it neatly in her lap...she was a very tidy eater, a very dainty one.  

Sometimes, not often, she would answer a question or speak slightly with the food in the corner of her cheek, as if to emphasize a point or utter a laugh...this was usually when eating pizza or other hand-held food, sitting on the trunk of his car in the parking lot of a beach or something like that...the normal courtesies of restaurant etiquette thrown away.  Kissing her after a bite of a taco, tasting the food on her lips, a closed-mouth kiss that usually was drawn up in a smile.  Food rarely connected them but when it did it was memorable...a private party.  The table with the view...a quiet corner when the noise was mostly the sound of a utensil against china...they could eat in silence, enjoying the private space.

Half of watching her eat was to enjoy her devouring something, even if devoured in the slowest most congenial manner...like the food had long surrendered and accepted its fate to find itself upon her tongue, gliding past her teeth until they clenched and became minced and silenced down her throat.

He particularly enjoyed when she loved the dish...her head slightly forward as if to get closer...a little more frequency with the fork, more quietness in the conversation...when looking up her eyes were shining and there might even be a bit of the sauce or the juice or whatever liquid was immersed alighting on her chin.  She would smile, embarrassed...the napkin coming up again.

Mostly though he just loved watching her mouth...a mouth he knew...a mouth that was responsive...a mouth that when troubled was a taut thin line...when saddened turned down and maybe shivering in a cry...but in a certain quiet moment, when her mouth was upon his he could feel her energy...her cascading warmth...and if her mouth dare parted slightly he knew exactly what it was like to be devoured.

She looked up from her food.  

What? she said, sitting down her fork.

Nothing...he replied...nothing at all.