Embrace

In 79AD Mount Vesuvius erupted, engulfing the village of Pompeii in fiery molten rock and ash.  People were flash-frozen in time and they are forever memorialized in almost statuesque grace. There is one pair called the Lovers of Pompeii that are forever bound together in an embrace. 



Her finger trembled.

He felt it as her hand was against his cheek...he had his arms wrapped around her in a full embrace and her arms were drawn up against her like she was praying...the morning was a bit in play and the scarcity of the light still meant it was early.

He could inhale her.  The freshly showered skin...her lotion.  But mostly it was her stillness...engulfing her in a clutch that pushed skin against skin...and it was warm...a full-body warmth that you only feel in baths...where every portion of of you is heated and unlike any artificial fire or flame it is the proximity of each other that pulses a temperature.

Body heat...such a perfect climate beneath the white pale sheets and comforter in a winter.  They were supine in bed, cradled.  Traffic was white noise, but even her breathing was undetected...rather it was in the tiniest of movements that he knew she was letting go...relaxing...returning to a sleep.

Embryonic...floating in space, breathing in each other...a hammock.  The same size, shape and alignment...if seen from above they would form perfect parallel lines that were slightly bent.

He held her and felt her feather weight...his arms were gripped around her and she was in a cocoon of him.  Nestled beneath him he watched her eyes...closed, but occasional tremors like a return to sleep...he felt her body jerk slightly, knowing she was trusting and letting go...the first step off a pier into a lake of sleep...that drop, the suddenness and the slight jostle...he pulled her in closer when he felt her experiencing that plunge...murmured to her..."you're here...you're okay" and she nodded and he felt her body deflate and restore.

Her breathing was trust...safety.  He held her and what felt like minutes moved around the clock's face and he just tried to absorb her.  Letting her melt into him...butter on a skillet, a silence around them that was unfair to other mornings that weren't like that exact moment...five minutes, fifteen..30.  Just still.

Still.

Like two lovers in Pompeii inexorably preserved forever, he held onto her and merely diminished all things to simple breathing...to simple being...she moved slightly, a reminder that she existed...she lived...she was here.

Throughout the year she was a name, a voice...a sound or a sentence in an email.  She was a song that was playing in an upstairs bedroom that you could barely hear.  She was like the reveal of an opening front door...an invited guest long overdue.  She was a hope...and often a prayer.  A murmur.  A conjecture.  Imagined...fantasized.  She sometimes said his name....not always, but at times.  And in those moments he clung to a piece of her like a touch-stone...a reminder, a rejoinder...where he could return to and find her.

In this clench he knew he had found such a place...restorative...delicate...calming...such calm.  Peace. It was like a bit of redemption...if he were to be buried in flames and molten lava there was no other place that he would rather be.  She was an escape.  An exit.

to something much better.  And that he should hold on to it.  And be better.

She stirred, her eyes blinking and she smiled in her morning grin.  The light was returning to the room, the day was invading...his mind became cluttered with the tasks ahead...but his warmth remained and he collected his memories and placed them high on a shelf inside of his mind to preserve for much later.  And kissed her to remind himself she was real.

118 Miles

He closed the door of the car and despite the relative silence inside he could still feel the storm above him shattering the sky in blinking whites and cavernous thunders…he could see the outlet of the covered garage where sheets of gray rain obliterated the views.  He knew no flights were able to depart and in a moment of simple math he calculated the distance in his mind and the time of arrival.  He could see her soon if he merely drove the one hundred and eighteen miles between him and her.  

Her voice from the last call played in his mind like a record-player in an empty house…he could still hear it, could not exactly place its location but he knew it by the tiniest of sounds…the music of her, the tone and tenor.  The slight husk when tired…clipped when mad or annoyed…the last conversation was bright…light and anticipating.  

He pulled the transmission into drive and headed out into the downpour.

The rain thudded across his car, breaking the silence and smearing the windshield in a thousand rivulets…the gold setting sun behind Phoenix like some great eye peering at him…due west.   He wasn’t headed that way, couldn’t benefit from the glow but as he thought about it he felt faintly like her allure was as much a color as the fading star.  He could follow that path quite easily and so he turned from the sun and instead went due south, driving slowly in the flooding rains that piled brown and muddy waters on the highway.  

He looked in his rearview mirror and it looked apocalyptic…a blackness over the airport that was drawn like a curtain across the east…filled with flashes and grayness and it went from the top of the airport to 35,000 feet.  It was a massive bruise against the evening, blue and throbbing.  He could only hope to stay ahead of it, with the sunset on his right and the turbulent storm on his left.  I-10 went between both, and the flashing lights of cars and trucks only reminded him that this was a bit of a risk.

There was a time, probably ten miles into the trip when he had the tiniest of doubts…that the foolishness was about to catch up with him.  That somehow, nature, or something bigger was attempting to thwart him.  The storm had caught up with him in traffic, the heavy thuds of massive raindrops turning his car into a drumset, the traffic in a redlight slowness in front of him and the barely visible sunset teasing him to his right.  Once the full thrust of the storm was upon him he’d likely need to pull over, wait out its length and watch the clock reminding him of the lateness of the hour. He glanced left, willed the cars in front of him to proceed and pulled into the passing lane…accelerating past the slower cars he really hoped he wasn’t going to go hydroplaning across the lanes and into the ditch separating the northbound lanes.  He kept up this pace, the windshield a white and gray blur and half expected either taillights of cops’ lights to appear.  Neither did and the pavement became drier….and his momentum kept him just yards away from the backlash behind him.  

He shifted into a more comfortable mode, no longer just trying to edge out the storm and make it safely…he now could allow his mind to let her slip over the walls that he used to bring focus.  She could climb over them and grab hold of his attention like an old-fashioned water pump, grasping his mind with her hands, working the lever and ultimately pulling on it until she cascaded all over him.

The ink spill of the evening finally covered the whole of the windshield and the desert’s vastness was more than darkness…it was an absence…it could have been a cliff, the edge of the world.  There were no guide lights, no indicators…just the long plume of headlights against the charcoal pavement.  An occasional driver heading north flared with two pale points of light but mostly it was limiting his sight to the road directly in front of him.  

The music was settling but it was also a reminder…the big space outside was like his mind…and the music was the road…and the lights of the far-off city were her…such contrast to the outside world and occupying a completely different realm than the millions of others out there.

Behind him the storm winked, clearly disappointed it didn’t disrupt him and he watched the endless white highway slip by him at the length of his headlight beams…and the dark kept repeating itself in black patterns.

If visible the landscape outside would resemble Mars…a desolate planet with little distractions…mountains spearing into the sky like teeth and flat open spaces where tiny cars could convene.  His trip was almost into such a void…the rest of the world was behind him…in time, in location.  Here they were completely alone…completely untethered. 

They were their oxygen…needing only to be close enough to breathe in…they were interlinked and intertwined, a tumble of limbs that binded them and grounded them…even the colors were foreign, and minds sapped by jet-lag merely took in the vast array of browns and tans.

He glanced at the time, and he could feel her close…feel it like a kinetic energy…the way you discern slight atmospheric changes…the way it smells when it is about to rain.  He knew she was close, and as dark as the outside was the sense of her was almost blinding…and he drove faster…accelerating into the evening that had been sucked dry of light and could feel the first faint parts of his mind beginning to breathe her in.

Afterwards

Afterwards the house was quiet.  The noise dissipated and there was the soothing sound of being inside while it sleeted outside, the tiny drops of ice seeming to sizzle on the tin patio roof.

The discarded wrapping paper strewn about, varying degrees of gifts stacked and sorted, and there was a peaceful chaos to the landscape...

Gift-giving or gift-receiving is a curious mystery...please guess what I am presenting to you...please know that I thought about this before buying...at times gifts become rote, and you get exactly what the person asked for...others are darling mysteries, trying to surprise the intended.

Protected by the thinnest of paper and perhaps the tightest row of ribbon, these gifts become revealings in an instant.  You know rather quickly if you appreciate...like...or love.

She was one of those darling mysteries.

He never knew what the outcome would be...her clothed in a warm winter coat, or in just the flimsiest of shirts...a red sweater or nothing at all.  He was always guessing...wondering what thoughts she was presenting...what accommodations to him...seeing her was always a delight...and from there?  Who knew...where would it lead?  What might happen next?

These were the greatest reveals that filled him and made each arrival come with such anticipation.

And only in her departures did he realize the despair of watching a gift break apart in his hands.
It was like that every time...afterwards.

Waiting in Santa's Line

He heard her before he actually saw her...she was just talking to her daughter as they stood behind him in line.  He barely heard her, with the sound of Christmas music droning out most of the noise in the store.

The line wound its way through the store, and people held their jackets in their hands, sweating in the warmth of the mall and the hundred of fellow shoppers doomed to wait the interminable distance to see Santa.  He was up there, somewhere...

But her voice was able to be heard...southern, soft.  Almost like a tiny song that floated a little higher than the Christmas tunes...he tried to slide glance at her, half turning as though observing the depth of the line, the length of it.  She was leaning down, her hair falling into her face as she unzipped her daughter's jacket.  She said a few more words and he heard them clearly.

Butter slowly melting over the heat of cast iron.  That's what he imagined listening to her.  He turned back to face front, impatient now, frustrated.  He didn't want to be obvious and turn all the way around.

He fussed with his son's hair, scare-crow like, most likely from his woolen cap.  He wasn't sure why, but he felt like he knew her.  Felt like he had seen her before.

The line slowly moved, the children embarking and disembarking from Santa's lap.  The surge of the crowd bumping them slightly as they tried to pass and move through the line and the the shoppers in the mall.  A few kids were crying, toddlers, beyond impatient.

I know how you feel kid, he muttered.

Suddenly the little girl behind him dropped a mitten and it slid past them and landed in from of him.  It was red, with a tiny bead on it that was white.  He reached down and picked it up, holding it like an offering.  And he turned.

She regarded him for a second, a tilt of her head.  She was even lovelier than he had imagined, and he had to break his stare for a second so he wouldn't be just foolish in his rudeness.  He turned towards the little girl and held out her mitten.  She grabbed it  and thanked him.

He had a bit of a choice.  Return his gaze back to the lady or turn back to the front of the line.

He returned to face the front, his face warming as he felt her stare onto the back of him.

He felt a small tap on his shoulder, arced his head a little bit and she had closed the gap between them, almost like about to make a whisper.


Thank you, she said and he faced her again, this time even closer.  The music was in between songs and it was very quiet so he heard it very well.  He nodded...her eyes merrily watching him.

They both smiled and returned to their prior places, the sounds starting up again and he felt a burning as he focused on staring ahead and hoping that Santa would take his damn sweet time.

safe

Safe.

Near, the distance of a kiss.
Collarbones touching, a rising from a breath.  I can feel your smile.

A cottony silence...not absolute...a rustle of a sheet, a slight clearing of the throat.  A blink, the eyes adjusting to growing light.

Warmth...the warmth that gathers in the night against a sleep, and puddles in pockets and spills out as we adjust ourselves against each other in a morning.

Safe, locked doors and drawn curtains...time becomes just a color of the morning...varying, moving but not hurried.

Hair askew, no mirrors yet, but comfort in the complete stare and kindness felt in the touch...kindness...appreciation.  No demands, just surrender...acceptance.

Nothingness.  Everything.  All at the same time.

The segue from sleep to this relaxed awakening...childlike, comforted.

The willingness to say anything...say everything.  Because I know I am safe.

Long Airport Walkways

There is such a willingness to subscribe to enduring the distance when the destination is ultimately you.

I wander as you sleep...your horizontal body aligned to the horizontal walkways I trudge upon, my steps coming nowhere close to where you are...rather I will need a man-made machine to fly me closer.

So my walk has no purpose, except to remind me that I am awake and you are likely not.

Are you dreaming?  Are you discovering in your sleep?  Are you remembering?

Somewhere out from this speck of airport there is snow...not here.  But out there, falling in a reminder of cold climates and mid-Fall storms.

Not here...the night is tepid, the warmth of bath water.

Out there is rain, but not here.  No delays or impact to this perfectly hewn night.  It is a perfect night to travel.

But in beds where there is snow lovers cling and clutch to each other, beneath blankets and wools, warming each other with their embrace.  In beds where there is rain lovers listen to the whir of the sounds on the roof...the white noise relaxing them, drawing them closer.  Maybe a fire is still spitting and blinking orange and black embers as it dies in a library fire-place.

Not here...the perfect weather lies out there in the blackness...I'm vertical and you are not here at all.

DNA

The plane arrived late, in a rain and he was almost in the last row nearest the bathroom and surrounded by kids and first time travelers.  He put his earbuds in and found a favorite song and closed his eyes against the seat, knowing it would be minutes before he was moving again.

Planes.

Planes and hotel rooms were his world.  Cities and time zones.  Passing through.  His mind was time-stamped and riddled with the scent of airports.

But for one brief moment he had been with her.  Held her.  For a moment his world was the size of a king-sized bed and his universe was the color of sheets and her eyes.  She had drifted into his, aligned and shared.  

She brought a summer day into the week when it was fall.  

For one night it was hearing the night noise of crickets and peep frogs...the sound of a ferry churning against the waters on the James River, the noise of moths whirring against a screen door under a light.

She brought a warmth to a day that was spitting cold rain and red taillights in traffic.

He remembered a time when she had asked to wear his tee shirt.  He was standing there in the morning, hair tussled from sleep.  It was a benign request but she was topless and the morning outside was just a gray and people were still starting their commutes and boiling coffee and she was naked and near.

He pulled it over his head and she swam her arms through the holes and allowed it to fall on her...it wasn't tight on her but her nipples poked through and he wished he had given it to her earlier.

It smells like you, she said and lay back down on the pillows.  Outside it was yellowing and a sun was competing with clouds and the rain had stopped and the puddles were shimmering in the moist light and it was still quiet in the room but his eyes were fixated on her.  And she was staring back.

The plane was still crowded as people tried their best to unlodge their suitcases packed in the overhead bin.  His song was replaced with another, and he forwarded it to find one he liked.

He remembered when he was packing up his items, and his shower kit was being put into its bag with the razor and the cologne.  He glanced into the sink and saw a hair of hers had fallen, perhaps in her departure, as she re-assembled and re-acquainted herself with her morning it had tumbled off of her as she brushed it and primped in the mirror.  It was a stark reminder that she had been there.  

It wasn't just something his mind had conjured up.  He held the hair in his hand before letting it fall back into the sink, swallowed by the water and into the drain.  

It departed down the small hole in the sink. 

 He walked out of the small hole in the plane, emerging and remembering like it was just yesterday that he was with her.