New

“Wow,” she said.

“What?” he asked from the bed.

“Dawn already. We made it.”

He yawned and rubbed at his eyes.

“We’re too old for this crap,” he said.

“Speak for yourself,” she said, watching the sun crisp the red of a robin’s breast. “I feel great.”

“I’m so heavy,” he said. “And yet the room spins.”

She turned from the window, sizing him up.

“Well, there’s your problem,” she said.

“What, the alcohol? Blame the Lockharts.”

“No. It’s not that,” she said, approaching the bed. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm hmm. Big problem,” she said. “It’s a new year, darling. Cast off the old burdens.”

He chewed on a fuzzy lip.

“Not too sure what can be done,” he said. “With me being incapacitated.”

From the bedside, she grabbed the cuff of his blazer, and rolled him free of it.

“Better?” she said.

“Better,” he agreed. “But still pretty heavy.”

She hiked the skirt of her dress and dimpled the mattress with her knees. Straddling his waist, she loosened a knot under his Adam’s apple. His neck burned as the trident tie was whipped away.

“Thanks,” he said. “I can finally breathe.”

Her knees slid to the sides. A hot weight pressing in.

“On second thought . . . ”

“Still feeling heavy?” she said. Her nail tapped at the first button on his collar.

He just watched her in reply. With eyes still drunk on night.

Her fingers sharpened their fever. She finished off the rest of his clothes with the speed of silence. Pulling her dress off, she tossed it over the headboard. It dropped to the floor as she unwound her hair and let it spill over his chest. The static electricity crackled.

His ribs leaped at their flesh.

She reached with her mouth for all of his tired places. To swallow his weight. The soft secret under his earlobe. The crescent of his throat. That hard screw buried beneath his shoulder. Her lips melted into the palm of his hand (she loved his hands), before lifting lower. The scent of that skin rubbing deeper than memory, broader than lust. Massaging its fury.

He pulled her roughly to his mouth. Finding their center.

“I love—”

“I want—”

But old words were not enough as they drank from something new.

Wild Strawberries

She stained his hair
with passion's pulp,
as he teased her knees
with nerves of grass

And like a record
sweetened by its needle,
contact spun them
a crackling song

Berry juice squeezed
from electric thighs,
tiny seeds like gold dust
flecking red tongues

Grandma

Braiding the fringe of the bed's throw, I squeezed between my sister and brother, as Grandma told us that story of catching the paddleboat waves with her canoe. Her salty (read, inappropriate) language always made us giggle, and I breathed in the sharpness of her arthritis ointment as my chin chittered against my chest. Inching closer to her, because I happened to like the smell of Ben Gay. And the way she slung her hand behind her head, revealing that pale, papery skin on the underside of her arm. Even the reflux spasm in her throat—like a constant clicking—became the soothing background noise of those lazy, summer mornings.

Yes, we have to love our grandparents. But how I liked her, too.

Grandma was a fierce protector of those she loved, and fearless in general. When a restaurant didn’t hire my sister as a waitress, she refused to ever eat there again. We made fun of her for it. But she was dead serious. I was once harassed by a mime (yes, a mime) at an amusement park, and she gave the guy such a verbal smackdown that I don’t think he could have talked, even if he’d been willing to break his code of silence.

Sometimes, her intrepidness embarrassed me. As a girl, I’d hide inside a clothes rack in the department store as she argued with the salesperson about an expired discount, or some such thing. Humming slightly, to drown out the agony of such brazenness.

But mostly, I just thought of how much fun it would be to be like her. Bouncing and screaming with her twin behind that boat, as its paddle slapped at the Ohio River. Graduating from college after having her only child, my mom. Celebrating Christmases with my grandfather in Mexico City. . . why not? Feliz Navidad!

She died in 2002. At 91.

And slowly, we forget these details. So many meticulous brushstrokes fade into dull impressions, some warped by the bitter shades of old-age afflictions. And so we point to loved ones’ photographs in albums, telling our kids, That was your great-grandma. She would have loved you so. They look on, only slightly curious, at this stranger frozen in time. And then, because we cannot explain a person’s life in so few words, with so little time, we flip the page. The lump in our throat all packed away.

But last night, those precious details returned. I felt the slickness of her palm pressed to my own. That familiar hand, all veins and joints. We walked together under a starry, museum sky, and she told me that she loved me. Or I told her. I can’t quite remember, but the word love stamped itself inside my head. And was bursting from me when I awoke.

So today, that lump in the throat has free reign. Not because I lost her again. For even while dreaming, there was the awareness that our time was fleeting. But because I received the bittersweet gift of knowing her again.

And this chance to keep her alive a little bit longer.

--

Dedicated to Elinor Luttrell: Grandma, anti-mimeite and wave rider.


I am myne owene woman, wel at ease

--Geoffrey Chaucer

Postcard

Mara,

I love you.

All this way, the shit I’ve seen, and that’s all I got. I love you.

I thought escape, escape! But distance just makes the heart sing louder. Until it’s a god-damn carousel in my ears, spinning me to sleep at night. I...love...you...

I want to touch you, consume you, make your body bend to mine. These roads are so weary, Mara.

I belong to you (I love you).

That’s all I am.

So please, baby. Please.

Sing me home.

Well there was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show that to me, do you?
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

--Jeff Buckley, performing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

[Photos of Ohio's Smallest Church, near Belpre]

Brigadoon

Her feet hung over the blanket’s edge. The grass tickled her ankles.

“Are these clouds even real?” she said.

He claimed her waist with his hand.

“For as long as we’re looking at them,” he said.

“What happens when we’re not?”

“So long, clouds.”

She laced her leg between his thighs, pooling their sweat. Their heat.

“Our clouds,” she said, filling her nose with the sharpness of his skin. Sunspots flared across her vision. Toes cramped, digging into the damp earth.

“We should build a summer home up there.”

“Mm.”

“Call it Brigadoon.”

Her chin rubbed his shoulder, while her hand slipped below his waist. Searching. Coaxing.

Needing.

“Will we have to wait a hundred years between our summer days?” she asked.

“What?”

“Brigadoon . . .”

“Sorry. I’m a little distracted. Again.”

She smiled. “I love it when you can’t think.”

"I know."

Sliding on top of him, she pressed his arms into the ground. Fingernails dividing the taut tendons, muscles. He could slip away, flip her over. But he didn’t.

Yet.

So she moved faster. Loving those hunter’s eyes. Matching their reach. The sun pounded her back. So bright, so bright. She ached to melt. Center out.

“That cow over there. Is watching,” he said.

“Quit pretending. You care.”

“I think he’s—Jesus—judging me.”

“Shut. Up.”

“Our cloud. Would be. Softer.”

“But I like. Hard.”

She placed a hand over his mouth, watching his eyes smear over. Showing him what soft was.

He seized her hips. Rolled her over.

Proving her deep.


The clouds blew by.

They didn't care.

Ferris Wheel

They circled through the smoldering afternoon. Her cheeks were flushed, but not from the sun.

“Keifer! When you gonna kiss her already?”

They looked, again, at his friends in the car behind.

“Idiots,” he mumbled, turning back around.

She answered the apology in his voice with a forgiving glance. But neither could hold the heat from the other’s eyes. Her stomach dropped as they crested the orbit’s peak.

She looked away.

“You want some?” he asked, offering her the cotton candy.

Her tongue had somehow jammed. She nodded and ripped off a pink handful. The spun sugar tasted like one of those clouds, sweetened by summer's gold.

Dissolving, dissolving . . .

She liked the large, capable hand resting on his thigh. She wondered how it might sit upon her shoulder. Tucking her chin aside, she licked her sticky fingers.

The wheel slowed, and stopped. Ready to unload.

She covered her mouth, swallowing a small cry. All that distance covered, and they hadn’t really gotten anywhere. Their bodies still belonged to separate planets. Down there, in the harsh glare of his friends' spotlight, contact would be impossible. And yet the hands of this ferris clock spun faster than time.

Their car eased into the top spot, and rocked them like two babes in the night. She caught her breath. The horizon opened up a safe harbor to anchor their gazes.

His knee slid over to find hers.

The long line beneath her eyes swam. She leaned into him.

Hoping, hoping, hoping to never again touch ground.

Lay Your Head Down

And what I'm thinking of just this time
Why don't you lay your head down in my arms?
In my arms.
Lay your head down in my arms.

--Keren Ann, Lay Your Head Down

She had to make it out of the money room.

Words galloped from thoroughbred tongues, all piling into her right temple. A toxic clock marked her agony, while a door bewitched her with its slinky crevices. She wondered if she could turn the knob with the weight of her—

She had to make it out of the elevator.

It was supposed to count down the nine stories. But it was going up three . . . four . . . gritting her teeth, she saw the Kabuki faces around her growling with a feral pleasure, pawing at one another with claws and precious spittle. She rocked back on her heels and touched a cheek with her free hand. It was solid. This was still living. Squeezing closer to the wall, she became aware of a string around her heart, pulling her toward—

She had to make it onto the subway.

But a homeless man needed something from her.

“Please . . . please?”

She wasn’t sure who was speaking. The voice tore off that dull blade in her head she had conditioned to sheathing. But she speared her eyes to the yellow safety line until the man’s shadow lengthened, and the shrieking train spent its climax. The engine gasped, she relaxed, and the only shadow left on the platform was something like her, with all the color leaked out. The string around her heart kept its demands. Loosening her scarf, she let it drop to the tracks and slipped between a train's sliding doors.

She had to—

No.

She wanted inside the brownstone building.

The string was taut now. As rigid, and fine, as a spider’s arrow, spinning her into a warm web. It drew her up the stairs, and through the door.

Its other end lived in the den, upon the leather couch, in a land without clocks.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

He beckoned.

She came.

The skin of her face was smooth. His chest was not. She laid her head down, two dark shadows swirling into one. The string shimmered.

And danced.

[Painting by Marc Chagall]

In Fair Verona

“Well, goodbye, then."

He leaned forward as she stepped back.

"Later." She turned, aborting their waltz. “Thanks for walking me back. You really didn’t have to.”

“I know.”

Watching her take the stairs up to the apartment, he understood that, as her calculus tutor, his life was tangential to hers. His pull on her as weak as the moon’s gravity upon the sun. He believed he was okay with that. But today she pierced him with that gauzy skirt, not caring to conceal the razor burn on the legs beneath. Recollecting the intimacy of those small, angry bumps next to his knees, his hands curled into fists.

She paid him, damn it. To understand derivatives. Nothing more.

But there was something about a balcony that begged to be climbed.

“Juliet!”

Her key paused in the lock. She looked down in a manner that suggested she had already forgotten him. Feigning interest in the dumpster, he attempted a laugh. But he choked on the dirty air.

“Yeah?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “Just something stupid.”

She leaned her hips into the rail. “What?”

“Only . . . ”

“Jesus, Daniel.” She rolled her eyes, falling back into her sandals. “Spill it.”

“My friends, in high school.” His cheeks flamed. “They called me ‘Romeo.’”

She concealed a smile with her keys. “Oh?”

He shrugged. “They were being ironic.”

“Ah.”

He waited for anything else.

“I never really felt like a Juliet, you know.” With a key, she carved something into the rail, her hair spilling forward. “My parents were these romantic freaks, and I guess—”

She broke off.

“They thought you should be, too?”

“Yeah,” she said. “But it always kind of embarrassed me. People can make too many assumptions.”

“I know.”

She blew on her bangs and adjusted the strap of her bag. “Anyway.”

He lifted a hand, and smiled up at her. “Goodbye, then.”

She nodded and turned back toward the door. “See you on Thursday, Daniel.”

But something in her voice had turned soft. He had widened her circle by a degree, maybe two.

It was enough. He turned away, feeling the shadows of the day dissolve into night. Whistling, a little.

This was merely the balcony scene. He still had three more acts.


----


Here are a couple of my favorite interpretations of the classic Shakespeare scene, by way of Youtube: the 1968, Zefferelli production, and re-imagined in song as West Side Story. Check them out...

Fields of Gold

The wind implores
the wings of her hair,
But she only soars on
the lift of his words—

I love you.

And when she swoops
into his dark grain,
the flame bends, as
tandem natures cling

--

ETA:

A huge thank you to Jason Evans
for honoring me with first place in his
"Running Wind" contest for my entry,
And Miles To Go Before She Sleeps.

A wonderful recognition in a field of
such talent. Congratulations to
all the winners and participants! And to
Jason and Aine, for running such a
flawless, and fun, contest.

La Vie En Rose

Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
La vie en rose

--Edith Piaf

Do you remember Paris afternoons?

When there was the impression of contact
as we lapped at a lazy sorbet,
and I pointed to the sky, saying,
That cloud looks like a Rodin
as dreamed by Monet.

You with your chocolate,
me my strawberry.
So when lips brushed lips,
we tasted of Valentine’s Day.

On a Paris afternoon.

Moon River

She liked how he said her name. Like the new language of her on his tongue was a sweet to be sucked on.

“Lauren.”

She smiled into the phone.

“I was just wondering what you thought about life after death.”

She sat on her bed.

“This is why you called?”

“I think it’s important. Don’t you?”

Audrey Hepburn began a muted Moon River on the TV. Her thoughts fluttered.

“I don’t know . . . isn’t it more important to think of this moment? How we’re living?”

He worked the graveyard shift because it offered better pay. She worked days. When they had met two months ago, this hadn’t been a big deal. An ambulance wailed across his night, while crickets strummed in hers. Whatever. They had to do what they . . .

“Well, yes. But life, death. They’re connected. What we think of death influences how we live. How much we’re willing to risk.”

“I suppose.”

He sighed.

“Here’s the thing: I just lost a patient. A newlywed. Car crash. His wife went bonkers. Grabbed a syringe and started slashing at her skin. Had to be sedated, and—”

Tears filled her eyes.

“Aw, hell,” he mumbled.

“It’s okay, Ethan. You’re allowed. It sucks.”

He sniffed. “Thanks.”

Audrey Hepburn had the saddest, most beautiful eyes of any creature she had ever seen. Wasn’t she in a movie where she played God?

“But it got me thinking, Lauren. Do you think they’ll ever be together again?”

“The dead man and his wife?”

“Yes.”

She inched the volume up on the television.

We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.

Audrey smiled.

She turned off the television.

“I’m not sure that I do.”

A long silence. Then—

“Lauren?”

“Yes, Ethan.”

“Then what the hell are we doing spending this lifetime apart?”

Winter Rain

Click. Click. Clickclickclickclick.

“What are you writing?”

The boyish frenzy of hair swirls her step.

“I don’t know.”

Clickclickclick. Click.

She claims his shoulders.

“You don’t know?”

His muscles sharpen. A warning.

“It’s a complete, fucking mystery is what it is.”

Click!

She places her chin on his head. The wet fingers of her hair cup his face.

He leans into her.

She shivers.

“But you always say this . . .”

Click . . . click . . . ?

Her hands stream down his chest. Particles of water duped into mist.

She reaches for his belt.

His hand fires.

Skin gasps.

He locks onto her wrist, following its warm promise, awakening to her damp bareness, her shocking otherness. The apple of her shoulder. The wings of her collarbone. All this sweet terrain.

He stirs.

She rounds the chair, sliding his lap between her legs.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“I just thought you should know.”

Her lips are plums.

“Mm?”

“That I’m falling in love with you.”

His hands halt their dizzy progress.

“Only now?”

She advances her curves into his hard lines.

“But—”

She kisses him.

His elbow recoils.

Click.

He pulls back.

“We’ve—”

Click.

“Been—”

Click.

“Married—”

Click.

“For—”

Click.

“Seven—”

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ick.

“Centuries.”

She traces his lips with her thumb. He follows.

“But it just came upon me again. Like a spring day.”

He places his hands on her shoulders to study her.

And shrugs.


“You’re a complete, fucking mystery is what you are.”

She tucks her chin down, mostly smiling.


The light from a computer falls silent.

Two hearts twirl into warmest, wettest rain.



[Art: Lovers in the Red Sky, by Marc Chagall]