Hours coursed by on that long afternoon
Sensed as minutes, as the still air in the room
And outside the window
Made no sounds to punctuate the time
We spent together
My body lying on top of yours
My damp hair feathered across your chest
My cheek pressed against your warm skin
My ear cupped to a soft crease in your muscles
So I could listen to your heart beating beneath bone and tissue
A steady rhythm, relaxed and perfectly timed
To your gentle breathing
Unlike my own heart,
Whose rhythm is irregular, like an impromptu bongo riff
In some ‘50s syncopated jazz number
An unfortunate quirk of chromosomes
That typically goes unnoticed
Except when suddenly aroused when you touched
Your palm against my back,
Or startled by emotion when
You said you wanted me to stay,
Or strained by the tension when
I thought I might not be ready to do that,
My heart went off like a furious solo
In the middle of a wild song
So I breathed and exhaled to calm the crazy rhythm
Settling my cheek into the hollow of your chest
Inhaling the smell of your skin
Tasting the trace of sweat left from our afternoon
And knowing that despite my heart’s betraying outburst
I would stay for good.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
And He Was Lost
In the fading afternoon light, his eyes looked gray, the soft gray of a newly sewn Confederate soldier’s coat.
They may once have contained a hint of blue.
But it was gone.
He perched silently on a barstool, his face lit by the sun streaming in through the bank of windows. The gray eyes stared out at the horizon, at the milky brown water of the still lake, at the deep, velvety green of the lush pines in early summer, at the haze of the afternoon sun burning through the thick air.
He sat very still as he stared. His only movement was the lifting of the bottle to his mouth. His eyes occasionally darted around the room, to quickly look at the others there, the others talking and laughing over their drinks. Occasionally his face broke into the tiniest smile, as if he was pleased by their laughter, and wanted to join in their talking, but he did not.
He was neatly dressed, but very casually, as a man who has no place of business to attend would dress. Those days of work were behind him, it seemed, and he was at rest.
Or was he?
His hair was thick, brown streaked with gray, and neatly combed across his brow. His skin was dappled and leathery, with a touch of gold.
Or was it a hint of yellow?
Perhaps his skin was worn from years of sun and salt, from summer tans gathered by the shore, on the decks of sailboats, laughing with his companions.
Or perhaps from years on the road, lonely, late nights in motel bars, nights punctuated only by the din of the “Tonight Show” monologue on the television in the room, and the distant voice of his wife on the telephone receiver.
Or the clink of ice in a bathroom glass, ice massaged to give up its last kiss of whiskey.
The late afternoon sun slipped behind the bank of pines and burnished the horizon with a tarty peach glow before sinking completely to welcome the night.
The barroom grew fuller and louder, young men and women filing in after work for their cocktails. He seemed smaller on his barstool, shrinking into himself, still silent.
Silently, he stared at the young men and women as they drank and flirted and talked. He stared at the women, but with no movement in his eyes, no message.
Or was there a message, a message ignored or missed, somehow, in the din and revelry of the night?
The young women avoided his eyes, his staring gray eyes. They moved outside to revel in the warm bath of the summer night air, and the young men followed them there.
The man stayed inside, on his barstool, alone, not moving except to bring his bottle of beer to his lips, lips that were so parched, for so long, that nothing could quench them.
He sat, stared into the distance, no longer at the young women, but into nothingness, a deep and impenetrable place before him, a place where the pain was so acute that the medicine could no longer deaden its knifelike assault.
Was it the past or the present that haunted him? The future no longer existed for him.
And then, suddenly, there was movement – the bottle slipping from his grasp and crashing to the floor of the bar.
Not a tragedy, in a bar, it happens all the time, beer spilling and rolling around the floor beneath people’s feet. Easily replaced, said the bartender, who began to notice that the man was not merely lonely and drunk, but dangerously so. She asked him if he wished for another, her tentative voice hoping he would say no.
She knew he would say yes.
She fetched another bottle of cold beer from the ice chest, opened it, and placed it before him, then quickly retreated to see if the young women and men on the deck needed refills. She could not bear to watch the man drink his beer, because she knew, knew from his eyes and his skin and his silence.
The last beer might be his last.
He drank from the bottle, hungrily as a child seeking sustenance but not knowing the sensation of satiety, and the cold, frothy liquid went down his throat.
It reached rock bottom. There was nothing inside, and the medicine turned to poison within him.
He listed and rocked on his stool, but there was nothing and no one to catch his terrible fall.
In an instant, he fell from his high chair, and his face hit the edge of the wooden bar and then, calamitously, the floor, where the remnants of his spilled beer still lay, pooled and wet and sticky.
He finally made sounds, muttered curses, groans and then, the sound of the stool falling on top of him as he kicked it over with his flailing.
The bartender and the young women and men rushed inside to his aid. He made some mumbles of apology, and then brushed their grip and clutches aside, defensively.
He needed no one to help him, really.
Or did he?
As the bartender called a taxi to take him home, he watched the young women and men stand back a few feet, giving him some space, but also, he could tell, not wanting to come close to him, as if they might someday find themselves in his position.
Yet they already did, many of them, all the time. The only thing they had that he had lost was hope.
As the bartender asked him, repeatedly, for his address to give to the taxi dispatcher, he took a final glance at the young women and men.
And then, in a burst so quick and silent that the bartender and the young women and men were stunned and motionless, the man disappeared, into the dark, moonless night.
He was pursued, by all of them, and by others too, who saw him wander through the darkness, desperate to find his way home, to a place that was no home at all, and could not ever be found in this darkness.
And when they found him, he was bruised, and bloodied, and battered, and broken,
By the night and the silence and the years,
The many years, of long days on the road,
And forgotten voices on a phone,
And sailboats that broke their moorings and drifted, drifted over the horizon to be lost forever to the sea.
They may once have contained a hint of blue.
But it was gone.
He perched silently on a barstool, his face lit by the sun streaming in through the bank of windows. The gray eyes stared out at the horizon, at the milky brown water of the still lake, at the deep, velvety green of the lush pines in early summer, at the haze of the afternoon sun burning through the thick air.
He sat very still as he stared. His only movement was the lifting of the bottle to his mouth. His eyes occasionally darted around the room, to quickly look at the others there, the others talking and laughing over their drinks. Occasionally his face broke into the tiniest smile, as if he was pleased by their laughter, and wanted to join in their talking, but he did not.
He was neatly dressed, but very casually, as a man who has no place of business to attend would dress. Those days of work were behind him, it seemed, and he was at rest.
Or was he?
His hair was thick, brown streaked with gray, and neatly combed across his brow. His skin was dappled and leathery, with a touch of gold.
Or was it a hint of yellow?
Perhaps his skin was worn from years of sun and salt, from summer tans gathered by the shore, on the decks of sailboats, laughing with his companions.
Or perhaps from years on the road, lonely, late nights in motel bars, nights punctuated only by the din of the “Tonight Show” monologue on the television in the room, and the distant voice of his wife on the telephone receiver.
Or the clink of ice in a bathroom glass, ice massaged to give up its last kiss of whiskey.
The late afternoon sun slipped behind the bank of pines and burnished the horizon with a tarty peach glow before sinking completely to welcome the night.
The barroom grew fuller and louder, young men and women filing in after work for their cocktails. He seemed smaller on his barstool, shrinking into himself, still silent.
Silently, he stared at the young men and women as they drank and flirted and talked. He stared at the women, but with no movement in his eyes, no message.
Or was there a message, a message ignored or missed, somehow, in the din and revelry of the night?
The young women avoided his eyes, his staring gray eyes. They moved outside to revel in the warm bath of the summer night air, and the young men followed them there.
The man stayed inside, on his barstool, alone, not moving except to bring his bottle of beer to his lips, lips that were so parched, for so long, that nothing could quench them.
He sat, stared into the distance, no longer at the young women, but into nothingness, a deep and impenetrable place before him, a place where the pain was so acute that the medicine could no longer deaden its knifelike assault.
Was it the past or the present that haunted him? The future no longer existed for him.
And then, suddenly, there was movement – the bottle slipping from his grasp and crashing to the floor of the bar.
Not a tragedy, in a bar, it happens all the time, beer spilling and rolling around the floor beneath people’s feet. Easily replaced, said the bartender, who began to notice that the man was not merely lonely and drunk, but dangerously so. She asked him if he wished for another, her tentative voice hoping he would say no.
She knew he would say yes.
She fetched another bottle of cold beer from the ice chest, opened it, and placed it before him, then quickly retreated to see if the young women and men on the deck needed refills. She could not bear to watch the man drink his beer, because she knew, knew from his eyes and his skin and his silence.
The last beer might be his last.
He drank from the bottle, hungrily as a child seeking sustenance but not knowing the sensation of satiety, and the cold, frothy liquid went down his throat.
It reached rock bottom. There was nothing inside, and the medicine turned to poison within him.
He listed and rocked on his stool, but there was nothing and no one to catch his terrible fall.
In an instant, he fell from his high chair, and his face hit the edge of the wooden bar and then, calamitously, the floor, where the remnants of his spilled beer still lay, pooled and wet and sticky.
He finally made sounds, muttered curses, groans and then, the sound of the stool falling on top of him as he kicked it over with his flailing.
The bartender and the young women and men rushed inside to his aid. He made some mumbles of apology, and then brushed their grip and clutches aside, defensively.
He needed no one to help him, really.
Or did he?
As the bartender called a taxi to take him home, he watched the young women and men stand back a few feet, giving him some space, but also, he could tell, not wanting to come close to him, as if they might someday find themselves in his position.
Yet they already did, many of them, all the time. The only thing they had that he had lost was hope.
As the bartender asked him, repeatedly, for his address to give to the taxi dispatcher, he took a final glance at the young women and men.
And then, in a burst so quick and silent that the bartender and the young women and men were stunned and motionless, the man disappeared, into the dark, moonless night.
He was pursued, by all of them, and by others too, who saw him wander through the darkness, desperate to find his way home, to a place that was no home at all, and could not ever be found in this darkness.
And when they found him, he was bruised, and bloodied, and battered, and broken,
By the night and the silence and the years,
The many years, of long days on the road,
And forgotten voices on a phone,
And sailboats that broke their moorings and drifted, drifted over the horizon to be lost forever to the sea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)