One more Fourth of July year two thousand and thirteen getting my morning music fix with Pokey Lafarge & the South City Three on the stereo console singing about Cairo, Illinois and me being a true-heart, albeit transplanted midwestern gal, guess you could say I'm real partial to this sad, high, and lonesome song. Day off work, course ~ ran my dog under morning pepper tree shade, ukulele practice, then go visit with my family down the street, hang out, shoot the breeze in my brother-in-law's garage, check out all his new old junk do a little bench racing in Shawna's rustbucket 1937 Ford truck jalopy too hot to put that starter in so we run through joyful backyard sprinklers in our shorts bbq/sangria/fireworks sounds okay too, and God, bless America, damned sorry state we're in now, sure could use some extra, anyways.
I prepare justifications to be close to him
drop boxes of office supplies on the floor by his desk
so that I can spend a few more seconds lingering near his feet, picking up
tiny metal paper clips and scattered number two pencils
vociferously proclaim impromptu donut runs to the bakery
my treat for the workplace, for him. Afterward, after work.
I pursue his car almost all the way
to his home, cling to his bumper
smile at him whenever I see him checking
his rear view mirror, veer off at the last moment
just prior to the turn-off to his cul-de-sac
stop the car around the corner and wait.
I fritter the night hours watching him sleep
first from the car, quietly parked across the street
then from the shelter of the bushes behind his house,
pressed against his bedroom window, my hands leaving
faint outlines of sweat on the glass
as I think of more ways to get closer
try to find courage to say the things I must say.
From the massive continent of the school library's unabridged dictionary someone has carved out and set adrift the island of a single word -- sex. In someone's pocket the purloined noun bulges like raw diamonds, glows neon, it rolls around someone's tongue like ice cream before dinner.
In the belated adolescence of my student years, living by the words of the music that blared my ears while I revised, I spent restless nights alone in exam stress and unacknowledged lust while in the room above, your bedsprings creaked as you made love to a woman who shared my sister’s name.
Your daytime fingers making music, the deep low thrill of bow on string sent shivers down my spine as I sat serious at my desk, gazing through the window at the garden where a black cat crossed the lawn.
When time stops for us, maybe Light slows down to a crawl. You can see it coming, An infinite, immaterial glacier— Glittering, clear ice crystals, But soft and warm and reassuring. Finally your heart begins to thaw. And you think you hear, maybe, Deep inside, the voice of God, No louder than a trickle.
The sun is so bright I see only bursts of light, shards of your presence hover around the edges, your voice a distance I can't measure.
The trees are green again, spring in my pocket like a quarter when I need change, if I can reach that cloud I can gather the rain in my hands and you can drink.
I created the beginning, you stole the end, the middle killed us both.
You remain hovering around my edges, a stillness in my chest, a light that glows and dims, your voice stabbed by someone else's spears of sunlight, your presence, unaware of its power lingers too long because I ask it to.
Sleet on the turnpike in the middle of the night but I keep driving, both hands on the wheel, nowhere to pull off, and a yellow bus comes over the line and kisses my truck. That's all I remember. Now I'm in bed, wired to things, unable to move, listening to a doctor telling my wife, "It's been two weeks, no improvement. "He asks her nicely if we should let him go, the dimwit bastard. If I could, I'd scream but I can't even wiggle my toes.
A half-mad letter was in my pocket all day. All day it reminded me of disturbing things. Things were not going well. Not all.
In the number of removed light, it sent itself out, with distraught messages, things no one wanted to hear, least of all, me.
Its letters were moving around in my pocket, exploring how things should always be good, but they never are.
It wanted the blueprint of memories.
He called often long after we divorced. He wanted us to be friends. It eased his guilt. I shoved a cactus thorn under my thumbnail. When he called next, I pressed on the red infected nail. Venom ribboned as my thumb gave birth Soon I allowed the machine to answer his calls.
The morning after my death, the light comes up as usual, hungry flowers gasp open to the sun, cardinals
rediscover the clever songs of centuries past, you read this and turn the page with a little shrug
(I see the birds’ red bleed into the dirt, light hushes the sky like wind on a puddle)
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