Sand
He wakes to the he sound of the bath filling,
honey-smoked bacon below. He hears her, just hears her, faint, humming, soft on
the air like a phone purring beneath a pillow.
It hits him - thwack - he is in love.
He is many things, mostly things he does not like, but
she has told him, when he telephones, he is her gentle caller. She says it with
a kind of love, a tiny air of loss in her voice and he wishes he could always
be so soft.
He could wonder, as his second wife fades away, if he
could sift through the parts of him he doesn't like, leave behind those parts
that in the mirror do not frighten him. He so wants to love and be loved but he
knows he walks with ghosts.
He wants to say, we live here, angels, in the space
between our breaths, we fly, we sail, we are clouds that touch, we are light.
But he is afraid that as his mouth opens he will talk
about the wrong things, the distraction of wives, of the darker things, not of
what is possible, only of what has always happened.
He has known her, known her in the tightness of the
moment, that incredible shudder, the six-beat oh-oh-oh of her when he could cry
with giving; the beat of the unsaid, the incredible little death, how they
hover, hoping, yet are practical in their touching, afraid to only love.
He thinks, we could be driving home from a stale
party, or dying together, walking in the camps, or floating towards the falls
not knowing if the drop will be worth it. He thinks, this is important, her
quiet voice matters, the smell of bacon is like love on the air.
He would say, if he could, "I guess now we have
to get rid of her things," but to even think of all those things reminds
him of the two dozen years where he slowly became invisible, and how the
invisible him was angry, and never gentle on the phone.
Instead he wants to just hold her, let her know him
only through feel, through his words. Together they can imagine moments, locations,
coincidences, and, some day, some day, they will be alone, them, together in
the room.
He has always been just outside the School of Love, just
another dog in the rain, fallow, bedraggled, yet convinced there was love in
him, love that did not go sour, love that made people real and not transparent.
He thinks, yes, this has become love, but as he
thinks, this has become love, he thinks with his darkness, how does it become love, what becomes? What was "it" in the moment before it was
love?
He wants to build her a house; a house with four
ovens, ten beds, a balcony that looks down on a beach. He wants to walk with
her in sand but be able to watch her walking, too, walking away, and not be
frightened.
He wants not to be afraid of when love becomes
material and the heart begins to blur.
526 Words
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