Slivers

I study her departure.

I drink from her glass.

She was here...she was just here...and in her absence I feel such great ache.

The light from a May is still descending...between the columns of curtains there is a sliver.  It is enough to cascade her in black and white...it is a soothing color,  a warming one.  Her outline.  It is soft focused...it is Kodachrome...a brief flashbulb for my eyes to register...she is beside me...she is with me.  Until she is not.

I sip from her glass.

Her lips were recently here...I can almost taste the warmth of them.  The slight soft crush of them.  Against the glass I share a piece of mine that were recently against hers.  The glass is nowhere close...but if broken and in shards it would cut mine and would remind me of the bee-sting of her departure.

The room has the air of her.  It has her presence.  Her reminiscence.  The lingering notes of her.  The oxygen exhaled...sometimes in a tiny outburst.  When she was against me.  There is a sliver of her in the air...hesitant, almost...like a ghost.

But not a haunting.  Rather a comfort.

A reminder.

Like a tiny minuscule sliver from a piece of wood.  Embedded.  She is embedded in my mind.  A welcome thorn.  Penetrating.  Peculiar.

Drawing no blood when inserted....but rather a simple brush upon.  A simple intersection.   A delight actually.

When the day is still deciding to be between the sliver of an afternoon and an evening...she is with me.  And soon the darkness wins and she is gone.

But like that sliver in the skin she remains...and I rub it for comfort.  For reminders.  For the next time.

Tequila

For a brief moment he remembered the sun the color of orange as it fell outside the window.  He remembered thinking "this feels like Mexico", and he remember turning towards her in bed, her hair cascading across the pillow as she lay naked...somewhere music was playing low but rhythmic...and then he remembered glancing at the empty shot glasses on the bedside table and they were sideways, leaning...

until he realized it was him, leaning slightly, falling back upon the pillow and he squinted briefly before passing out, the sun the color of a pumpkin still collapsing outside.  It was 6:59 at night.



He woke up with a bit of jerk, the room completely pitch black.  His head felt like he had a concussion and it felt like he had a cactus in his throat.  He heard her breathing in her sleep, an almost-rustle due to the depth of her comfort and she had moved slightly but he still saw her hair on the pillow, covering her face that he could barely discern in the dark.  He pulled up the covers that had been pushed to the edge and covered the both of them...she didn't move.  His head split into pieces of glass that kept grinding against each other as he moved the blankets and he hurriedly laid down, the shards settling into an annoying clatter that he gritted his teeth to and forced his eyes shut to sleep.  It was 2:13 in the morning.


It was 11:12 in the morning...

He didn't open his eyes but rather fluttered them to briefly see if his brain would allow light.  He actually felt better...thirsty.  But the concussion was gone, so was the cactus.  She had turned in the night, away from him and her back was to him.  He could see the knobs of her spine as it approached her neck, fine hairs along it...the light in the room allowing such details to be revealed.  He dared raise his head and there was still a bit of stir, like water sloshing in a bucket so he slowed his getting up...but there was no headache anymore...just this weight.  Like he was wearing heavy clothes.  Slow to move...he was the shot glasses again, they were perfectly straight and vertical.  One still had salt on the rim and he unconsciously licked his lips, surprised he didn't find a stray grain.  He tried to stand and had a wobbly start, but amazingly his head felt okay.

It was almost noon when the door knocked...room service with a Bloody Mary and a Mimosa.  Two of them apiece.

He thanked the hotel attendant and brought them back into the room...he had pulled the curtain closer together so the light was more peaceful.    He sipped at the Bloody while holding the tray of drinks...the alcohol scrubbing bits of last night's adventure away with fresh new energy...and he felt instantly better when he drank half of it.  He set the tray down quietly, crept into his side of the bed and slid over.  She stirred...then groaned.

Slightly turning to him she opened one eye, blinking..."did you happen to order any breakfast?"

He nodded..."Mimosas and bacon"

She allowed her head to fall back to the pillow, her eyes closing..."Thank God."

Home-like

In the beginning it was quite simple...there was just air.  Nothing between them, nothing attached.  If it had been a home it would have been a grassy lot, maybe uneven dirt...perhaps maybe just a property line staked out with red and green tape attached to the wooden markers driven into the ground.

Not empty, but nowhere full.

No shelter.  No fireplace, no protection.  But there was imagination...there was a view.  There were the ways the storms approached from the East and broke and cascaded.  So there was that.

And with that first kiss the very first brick was laid...not quite a cornerstone but maybe the beginning of a walkway...the beginning of a porch.  Perfectly placed, a brick surrounded by the rest of the world but somewhat stark and almost lonely.

Soon other bricks were joined, the mortar this connection that was still not quite settled, but tenuously in place...raw.  A small portion of the walk that was just beginning.  But the view...with just a few simple bricks the shapes were imagined...the fence lines...the hedge lines...the skylights.  There was so much to imagine.

With each lunch or coffee, with each paragraph exchanged in words she was becoming known.  But she was just a guest...new...like a returning traveler to a familiar inn...coming and going but mostly hidden behind private doors.  Except with her there was such a desire to follow...to learn more.  To hear.  These tiny bricks she laid that promised something...something of grandeur.  You could almost feel it...almost recognize it.

When you were with her, just a small portion of it felt home-like.

Weekend Morning

He awoke before her, glancing at her huddled shape beneath the covers where she had pulled most of them around her, leaving him with a few bits of sheets and a little bit of blanket at his feet.

He smiled, knowing she was warm, probably still hungover and let her sleep.

It had rained overnight, the air heavy with humidity and drawing a pall across the sky.  The sky was white, the morning felt scrubbed and against the glass windows leftover rain drops slowly slid down. There was no traffic, no sirens...it was like the world was asleep.

He padded over to the coffee machine, one of those one cup at a time technologies and glanced briefly at the directions...figuring it out he did all the steps, and listened to the machine warming up the water.  Glancing back into her room he saw it was still dark, the curtains pulled tight...it was cold with the air conditioner on but he liked it like that...slept better.  Against her, his skin warm, she tended to slide against him, her legs entangling his, her arm across his chest, her nose near his pillow...he could feel her fall asleep, the tiny muscle reactions, the slowing down of her breathing...he thought she feel asleep first and once he knew that he could finally close his eyes and join her.

The coffee machine sputtered and started dispensing steaming coffee...the smoke of it rising and he looked for all the sugars and syrups he normally needed to enjoy it.  He found some in a box and added it until the coffee went from her eye color to a shade of her when her skin was the tannest at the height of summer.

He walked to the screened-in porch and opened the door, feeling the weight of the air finally...he pulled it closed quietly and sat and sipped...his mind was finally uncluttered...her proximity was comfort, his distance from her now gone.

Distance is a pragmatic matter...it's real, measured in miles and curves...with today's technology you could call or video...but still nothing was like the first kiss in rejoining...nothing like the weight of a hand placed...nothing close to scent.  Of all the senses it was just being near enough to breath her in.  She carried with her the day...her morning ritual, her day outside...her work, her play...she was recognizable and known...and when her narrow neck was near him all of her brushed off on him and he knew she was close.

She smelled like her.
She tasted like her.

A taste so instantly recognizable...unlike the coffee warm in his cup, with its syrups and sugars she possessed that naturally....every time.

He hoped she slept in...tried to remain still in the morning...her brain recharging and her body quiet.  There were slight stirrings in the air, leaves gently swaying, a barely perceptible breeze floating by now and again.  But mostly it was still.  Like a church that was empty late in an evening.


He finished his cup and thought about making another.  He felt a little anxious, knowing she was mere feet away...he wanted her to be awake, to be there...talking....that slight southern morning drawl that would be heavy from sleep.  Deep long deserved sleep.

He wanted to wake her with a kiss, right near her ear...feel her coming awake like he felt her falling asleep...he wanted her to join his day, be like a sunrise and just color his world, warm him, press against him and quicken his thoughts.

Instead he stayed quiet...knowing that he could be a little patient.  Knowing he could wait...that each minute for her was restorative...but still.  He could not wait for her to rise and truly let his day begin.

Soil

She loved morning sunlight the best, when it arced overhead in a slow and steady bird-like flight across the yard.

Pinking her nose, her thighs as she waded in the soil of her garden, alongside the barn and across to the little house.  Where grass never did quite well but never stopped them from trying...mostly though it was in the ground where she planted the Dahlias, and hoped for the Rainbow version.

Up the street in the Southern States feedstore she had plunged her hand into the seed bins, like bits of unmade candy in hopes of finding stark and contrasting colors.  She tied the seeds into tiny plastic bags with white foil ties and put them in the truck.  She loved the season of planting...re-starting...new and unmet colors.  Digging in the warming soil she barely had to use a trowel, but she had her hair pulled as tiny rivulets of sweat slid on her forehead, past her cheek.  She untied each of the bags and placed them delicately into the holes, patting them with covering and moving to the next batch.

A water pail was nearby, the water filled to the rim and it shimmied in the slight breeze.

She stood up to take a break and walked into the house, just as the air-conditioning clicked on with an audible snap and the screen door was shut.  It was well lit inside, and the refrigerator was ticking away and she snapped it open and pulled out a Corona.  She tugged the cap off with the iron opener on the counter and slugged down about half of it.  She looked at her hands, the dirt staining the sides of the beer bottle and her fingernails.  She looked at the yellow beer and hoped that perhaps some of the colors of the flowers would be that golden.

She went back outside, the screen door putting a punctuation on her departing.

The sun was full noon, barely a shadow beside her.  The beer was still on her lips, the droplets of sweat were still on her forehead.  The ground in front of her was mottled grass, a bit of white-washed brown in the old soil and fresh circles of newly ground soil the color of coffee.  It was a preview.

She imagined the future explosions of color, the contrast to the earth.

It was what she saw every morning over her dark eyes in the mirror, putting bits of pink on her lips, slight blues or silvers on her eyelids...

She was a sweet garden of colors and had no seasons but rather could bloom every day.  In winters and falls...she needed no rain nor water pail.

But even more so, she was the dark rich soil...where he could be buried, where he could be covered and with her perfect, certain care he would emerge.

Maybe not beautiful, but certainly better than he imagined.

Discernment

What do I see in you?

Rather, what do I discern?

The way you enter a room?  An elegant slide?  The slight adjustment from a dream-state to a reality?

Sometimes you are taller than expected, other times smaller.  I have to adjust my angle.

Your height...perfect when laying down...fitting...but perfect in an embrace of a hello...a fit...a comfort.

I recognize presence even before it happens...anticipation.  I feel the weight of you...I gauge you...an air pressure valve...I plug in and the needle moves.

I savor the morning you...the fresh and the clean...the unblemished...welcoming...

I delight in the evening you...some stress...some hair askew...natural.

The day of you.

Hours.

Minutes.

Give me what you can...extend into me an offer...an opportunity.

Because what I can detect is a return.

A home.

A land.

A familiar.

Restorative.

I find in you the outline of a shape.

That fits into me.

Cookie-cutter clean.

Perfect...in that chaotic way.

But mostly...a space that you fill that reminds me, time and again, of what I just need...in that moment.

That brief and fleeting moment when I first get to see you...and you enter a room.

Distance

Split the day in two, split the day in half...

Take a portion of it and divide the minutes...feel the seconds...like a heartbeat...a metronome.

Break the day apart like scattered clouds, follow their slow slack waltz across the sky...watch the tide slowly rise across the darkened sand...slowness, such unbelievable slowness.

Chant at the sun to hurry...hurry in its arc.  It never seems to move quickly until poised just barely over the horizon, then it is gone tumbling over the edge.

Plead with the day.  Bargain with the afternoon...the only lingering may be to watch the colors of the evening briefly at sunset so that I may enjoy a hint of beauty...a small portion comparably to what I am missing.

Throw my watch in the street, its slow reminder of minutes passing, and watch a passing car break apart the crystal, abandon the minute hand and never again weigh down my wrist with its boredom.

Shuffle through the day, pass through like pollen, float aimlessly and unhurriedly...so damn unhurriedly.

Hurry the hours until I get to finally rest my eyes and give myself the best chance of seeing you in my sleep.