Newton's Third Law

She touched him on his back. About three-quarters of the way up. Halfway between left and right.

In that place behind the heart.

“I’m claiming this spot as mine,” she said. “It belongs to me.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yep.”

Her fingertip followed the edges of a mole’s imperfect circle.

“And why is that?” he said.

“Because it’s the only place on your body that I can reach, and you cannot.”

“Not true. I can’t touch all sorts of parts. My pancreas, for example, is just out of reach.”

Her nail dug in a millimeter. Or three.

“You were saying,” he said.

She resumed the soft swirls, and smiled at the gooseflesh rippling up and down his back. Thinking suddenly, and mistakenly, of Newton’s Third Law.

For every action . . .

“I’m even going to give it a name,” she said.

“Make it good.”

She brushed the spot with the back of her fingers, like a petal scraping up sunlight.

“Don’t leave me in suspense,” he said.

“Okay. Just thinking.” She cleared her throat. “So I hereby dub this country The Land of—”

She broke off.

“Tease.”

“Pay attention, dummy. I’m trying to spell it out for you.”

Her finger slid slowly down, and then flicked to the side. Like a person deciding at the last second to cross a street.

“L,” he said.

Her finger circled the mole, which sat in the land behind his heart, and a scapula rolled in response.

“O,” he said. “But this is too easy. It’s reminding me of my least favorite superhero. You know the one? Master of the Obvi—”

Her finger curved, and curved again. Stopping just shy of infinity.

“Esss,” he said, and frowned.

“You should have more faith in me,” she said. “Even when I don’t seem to deserve it.”

“I'd agree to anything right now.”

Her finger drew vertical and lifted. Then a slash through the middle of the line. To make the last letter, but also a symbol of sacrifice.

“There,” she said. “All done.”

She brushed her hands together and placed them in her lap.

“Mm,” he said. “I see.”

She stretched out beside him on the rug so that they could look into one another’s eyes. Her feet curled to the bend of his knees. The shadows of the fireplace’s flames licked at the walls of the room and danced across their canvas skin. Painting perpetual motion.

She smiled at his pinched forehead. “I confused you.”

“I’m just not sure I get your meaning.”

She got a little closer. So he got much closer. They found the equal for every body part, and its opposite, too.

“It’s simple. Whenever you’re feeling lost, I’ll touch you right here.”

She placed her palm and fingers over the spot—about three-quarters up his back, halfway between left and right, in that place behind the heart—and pushed his full weight into hers.

“And I’ll find you once again.”

---

I'm sure most of you saw this photo awhile back.
But I'll link to its story in case you didn't.
Photo courtesy of Archaeological Society SAP.

Here, There, and Everywhere

At some point, it must be asked.

What if I’m ordinary?

I mean, would that be so bad?

Would life become a hollow enterprise, and would my bones care after I died?

There is such a drive to be special. To have that specialness make people love us. Because that’s what all of us really want. To be loved. That’s what I want, anyway, at my most basic level. Whether it’s the love of my husband, which cups me gently between its palms, or the love of a reader who’s never met me, which isn’t really love at all, of course, but more like the warm silence around a song.

What would happen if everyone in the world loved me, either like a warm silence or like a cup? Would that kill the urge to be special? To make a mark?

I doubt it.

You just have to look at celebrities—and I’m not talking crazy celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, but good celebrities like Paul McCartney—to know that the need never really fades. Maybe Paul doesn’t think he needs to be loved. Maybe he sees his music as something like rainwater from galoshes: it just has to be poured out. But why still distribute and perform it, then? Paul McCartney’s not going to get any more special. Once you’ve written, “Blackbird,” you’re about as special as they come. But the man wants to know that he still matters. I was here, damn it, and look how much they loved me (and more than John, right?). I just packed the new Citi Field Stadium, for god’s sake, 44 years after making thousands of girls lose their voices in Shea. I was The Cute One.

All in all, the drive to be exceptional is probably a good one if kept in proper perspective. We get things done. We aspire toward new heights. We create art. Impress others. We want people to love us, and maybe they’ll be special in a way that sings to us and we’ll give them our love in return.

When it becomes dangerous is when the need to be loved, to be validated, to make that eternal mark just doesn’t happen. Maybe we’re not that special. Or maybe we are, but not how we want to be. Not enough. Never enough. That’s when the need to be special just clobbers the heck out of a different kind of love.

The love for oneself.

My husband (another Paul) and I talked about this last night. I was down because I’m reading this truly great book by Jonathan Safran Foer, called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, while also working on my own novel. I said that I could never write anything comparable to this book. Not even close. It's like apples and oranges. A Mozart opera, and "Rock Me, Amadeus."

He very sensibly told me that I didn’t have to. Write that book. That my writing is a lake, and Jonathan’s writing is a lake, and lakes don’t drain one another or cross. My goal is to focus on my lake (okay, he said all of this much better than I am). I liked that. I felt very much like I was cupped, gently, between his palms.

Now to hang onto that feeling, without doing anything at all. And then to focus on that lake. That rainwater in my galoshes. Because I want to let it pour.

Without sucking the soul dry.

Like Water for Wine

Feeling for the last place on his body untouched by scars, he slashed its skin with her blade. Massaging his wrist, so that blood might flow as swift as memory.

A glass waited.

Two years. For two years, he sacrificed precious drops so that she might drink the living wine, and know his heart. Into every bottle he corked sang his song of the hour. Poured for her hunger, from a longing to be tasted. They could not talk. Or touch. Her father would not permit the union.

But love scoffs at smallness and laughs at divisions. And so she nightly drank his contraband emotions, dropping some token from her window to demonstrate her understanding. To let him touch her intoxication.

A red ribbon from her hair after gulping a smoky pinot noir. Days later, a copy of Don Quixote to clot despair's dry-dry river. Later yet, a pocketknife to cleave his pain in two.

He pressed the blood from its puckered wound. More sluggish now. The glass shattered and reassembled within his lucid dreaming. He reached for her final gift.

A dress. It smelled of skin and sex. Sorrow, too. He buried his face in its folds. No water left in his rind to squeeze any tears.

The night before, upon consuming the most potent blend of his ardor and need, she flung off the dress and erupted into flames. He watched her hair ignite, the ashes dancing downward to finally caress his face. To kiss his lashes.

To weep at division.

He drank from his glass. Allowed the liquid to take its final shape. Ready.

His eyes widened as the heat arced and scattered within him. Mapping the bitter, but also the sweet. The room wobbled, then flipped like an hourglass. Shady molecules sharpened back into atoms.

With his last drop of strength, he grabbed her red ribbon and circled the tourniquet around his forearm.

Pulling with the ageless wisdom of teeth, bones and terrible sinew.

-------

Although I didn't take part in Jason's In Vino Veritas short fiction contest this time around, I have been reading some of the wonderful entries. And sure enough, was inspired to come up with something of my own. If you weren't aware of his contest yet, you have until July 15th at 11 p.m. EST to enter a piece no longer than 250 words (er, don't count mine), based on his theme and photo. Best of luck to everyone involved! And big applause to Jason and his co-host, Jaye Wells, for another great contest.

I also wanted to say that I have been taking a break from blogging lately to focus on my family and novel. So I'm sorry for not getting around and responding like I should (because of my delinquency, too, you shouldn't feel obliged to comment here...I'll feel too guilty!). But I truly hope you're all enjoying the wonderful season!!

Living Fossil

He tried not to remember. Which was harder than forgetting.

But music was the devil on his shoulder, fanning old flames until they licked his ear with the urgency of heated breath. Anna’s music. Her cello.

He heard the ghost of the instrument now, cloaked in the low vibration of the museum office refrigerator. A bow agitating its string with indefinite equations. The beginning note of a Bach Sarabande, dragged to infinity.

He tugged on his eyelids and wiped his face. The wearying madness of it all. Too many years of sustained strangulation, without time’s loosening indifference. If she were dead, it might be easier, his brain sometimes rattled. Before he squeezed the thought out.

Grabbing the bones from the protective plastic bags, he started to inventory them for the museum’s new Homo erectus exhibit.

Ulna.

Check.

Left metacarpal.

Check.

Clavicle.

Clavicle . . .

Her neck.

Latex fingers traced the bone’s curving ridges. Palms sweated inside the gloves. His eyelids closed and fluttered.

But opened again.

Anna wasn’t there. She never was, except in the sleight-of-hand that dreams tricked up. Her music might linger like perfume, but his understanding of her face had muted into a finger-smudged memory of soft skin, without the hard lines defining it. His mind would not permit him the small pleasure of looking into her eyes. Of seeing her lips stretch into a smile. Of rediscovering the many soft hairs on the nape of her neck.

Only this music of the mind, continuously looping the loss. Like a shape-shifting tombstone. With pretty flowers pouring from its mouth.

Death masquerading as life.

So as the refrigerator’s motor kicked off and bones hoped for some kind of resurrection by his hands, Galen tried. He tried very hard not to remember. What living felt like.

Until the cell phone vibrated in his pocket with the prelude to their song.

His heart lunged. The vibrations dug deep and spread high. For this moment, he would not check the caller ID. On this day only—the anniversary of his injury, and their meeting—he would let himself believe that it was her.

Somewhere, on the other side.

“Hello?”

Giant

I hear
the jingle-jangle of
guitar chords strumming
a clean and simple tune,
Your cracked voice plowing
the dark lands of
knuckled earth,
Where wonder is the
crop, and bewilderment
the field

How strange it is
to be anything at all

If I could
swallow that truth
from your lantern lips
while belching its
cosmic uncertainty,
It might
(or might notly)
lift into a beanstalk
for the Jack-of-all-doubts
who flip-flops
within a mouth
of mirrors
I guess I’ll call

My soul




-----

The song is from Jeff Magnum,
when he was with Neutral Milk Hotel.
It's titled "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea."
The lyric in the poem's middle is taken from it.

Supply and Demand

“No way she can go to camp this year,” her dad said. “Not until I find work.”

“What about canceling the fishing trip with your brother?” asked her mom. “Or at least postponing it for now.”

“Christ, Shel. One weekend a year. One fucking weekend where I own my life. That’s all I ask anymore.”

Melanie watched the vein in her dad's forearm bulge as his fist squeezed atop the kitchen table. Grass tickled her calves.

“She’s been looking forward to it all spring. It will crush her not to go.”

“Great. I’m the ogre again,” her dad said. “Can’t do anything right.”

“I would do it in a heartbeat,” her mom mumbled a moment before throwing the garbage disposal switch. “And I’m the one who actually—”

The racket chewed up the rest.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing,” her mom said, flicking the switch back off.

The long silence grounded Melanie’s insides like the banana under the blade. She picked a paint chip off the windowsill, and touched it with her tongue.

“All right, Shelly. All right.”

She saw her mom’s mouth pick up a smile before she moved to hug Melanie's dad. His fist slackened back into a hand, before falling to his side.

Melanie dragged her knuckles along the house’s wood siding, and ran for the field. She stumbled, snatching some wildflowers on the way back up. Her nose dipped into their velvety fragrance as a bee buzzed her ear.

Melanie smoothed her shorts. And then the hair.

Her shoulders pulled back an inch.

“Yes, Prince Phillip, I will do you the honor of becoming your wife,” she said, and curtseyed to the air. Her eyes spotted the floral archway and widened. “It’s perfect!”

She ducked under the blossoms and sighed.

“No, no. Mummy and Daddy will just have to understand, that’s all.” She put on her best approximation of an English accent. “It’s simply out of the question now.”

Melanie sank to her knees and started to twist the stems of a flower crown. She twisted, and twisted again. When she placed the crown upon her head, she forced her mouth to pick up a smile. A princess bride's smile.

“Camp is for babies,” she said, folding her hands demurely in her lap.

Her jaw tightened.

“Not me.”

Bit o' News

I just wanted to let you guys know that my story, Jackpot, was a Runner-Up in the Winter flash-fiction contest sponsored by WOW! (Women on Writing). The winner's announcement is here, while my piece and pearly whites are featured here (with a couple of typos, including my name!). Literary Agent Janet Reid was the distinguished guest judge for this season, which fielded 300 entries.

I'm pleased!

I'm also sorry for not getting around as much as usual lately, and for posting less here. The other side of that coin is that my new novel has really taken root, which also has me very pleased. :)

Now to find more hours in the day...or to use them more efficiently! But I look forward to catching up on your blogs very soon.

For the Birds

Come,

inside

Pick the lock of time
and slip into
the crevasse
where a mouth
of silence sups
from
music’s hand

There is nothing
I can tell you
that your mind
hasn't already
grasped

So let us drop
language like
bread crumbs
and never turn
back

The first words
to be lost--

You

and

I

I Lost Something In The Hills

“How are you holding up, Ellie?”

“I hardly know.”

“It’s understandable,” her friend said.

“I-I’m so ashamed.”

“Of what, dear?”

“That I feel such anger. That if he were still here, I’d want to hurt him for leaving me. For not asking me if he could die.” She strangled on a laugh. “Pretty messed up, huh?”

“That’s normal, though. Remember the stages of grief—”

“Yeah, I can’t listen to that shit now."

“Sorry.”

“I know, in my head, that it wasn’t anyone's fault. But this pain . . . this pain . . . ”

“It’s possessing you. Filling the hole he left behind.”

“Pretty fucking big hole.”

“Listen to me,” her friend said.

“I’m so tired . . . ”

“I know, but just listen.”

She grew still.

“If you could go back to the beginning, to the concert where you two first met. Would you sit somewhere different today?”

Her hand shook as she brushed the hair from her eyes. “I might.”

Her friend sat back. “Really.”

“You said, “today.” In this moment, I might, yes.”

“And one month from now? One year?”

“Ask me then.”

Her friend squeezed her hand. “I think you’ll answer differently.”

“Okay.”

“And yet . . . ?”

“And yet I’ll mourn that, too. Because if the pain is lessened, then the hole is getting shallower. He’ll have started to slip away from me in a very dear and precious way, in spite of it all.” She paused. “Just like I’ve slipped from him.”

“Maybe that’s a mercy,” her friend said.

She looked out the window, toward the hills.

And squinted against the brutal blue of a sky with no shields.

“Maybe.”

---

My husband, knowing my penchant for
moodier music, turned me onto Sibylle Baier,
a German folk singer whose haunting songs from
the 1970s have only recently been recognized.
Her song, I Lost Something In The Hills,
inspired this piece.

A Mother's Day

Often, I look at you and my eyes well, but I have to hide it lest you think I’m sad.

You’re not yet aware that emotions can be as vast and complex as a country, or as small and specific as the freckle on your leg. That each tear has a different DNA.

I wish, like all mothers, that I were a better one. More patient and giving. Selfless. That I didn’t have to fight so to give you all of my attention, my time. That I enjoyed cooking dinner, taking care of the house. Those aren’t empty words. I know I could do more.

I sometimes think I’d be more that way if I hadn’t discovered writing. Or if it hadn’t found me. Then I remember my own mom, and wish she’d taken a little more for herself when I was your age.

I’m still searching for the right balance of you and me.

But here’s the thing: I know you love me. And you know I love you. We say it, we buy cards that brocade it, and we give big bouquets of sunflower hugs and forget-me-not kisses that require no spring or holiday.

You are more than me, more than your Dad. You are the baby I nursed, the toddler he swung, the child asking, “But why?”

You are the breeze in my heart, the anchors to my legs, and the ocean of love that is the source of those tears.

I love you both. And thank you for letting me by your Mom.