Ambivalence

She knew that the feelings she had
Were not love.
She knew that the anger she had inside
For him,
For his veering between
Ambivalence and outbursts of
Sudden, almost desperate longing,
Were not hate.
She was not ambivalent about him,
And she did not long for him out of
Desperation, but
She wanted him.
She wanted his fingers on her skin and
She wanted his mouth on her mouth and
She wanted his hands and his arms and his body
Around hers.

Yet she knew that what she really wanted
Was to be wanted by him, for him to want her,
Not only occasionally, in the
Middle of the darkest part of the loneliest nights when
He felt needy and afraid, but
In the middle of a Saturday afternoon, when
The sun was soft in the sky and the air would
Lightly ruffle the leaves on the full branches of the trees.
She wanted him to want her then, but
He did not.
He did not think about her then, and
He did not realize that she thought about him
At all.

It had never occurred to him.

She remembered someone telling her once that
Love and hate were really not such different emotions,
But were in fact very close together.
Almost the same feeling.
You could confuse love and hate,
And your love could spill into hate
And back again
If you were not careful.

Yet she knew that she did not love him,
And that she did not hate him.
She knew that she was capable of loving him,
If circumstances changed, if he could suddenly
See her as more than a
Crutch or a feather and
Turn his mind to her and
His heart to her, but
She also knew that
This was unlikely and
She knew that wanting him would
Never be enough to make her love him,
And would never drive her to
Hate him.

Purple Sky

It started out like the trip from hell.
Driving for hours down a monotonous interstate,
The afternoon punctuated only by
Polite conversation and the stench of wildfires
That we'd heard about on dire reports in the news.
It hadn't rained for weeks.
And it wouldn't anytime soon.
There was just a feeling of despair in the air,
And everyone was ignoring it.

Somehow it got worse.
An accident, hitching a ride to the doctor, shots and pills.
I walked gingerly, in a bit of pain and embarrassment too.
What else could go wrong?
Oh, just wait.
Some guy in boots stepped on my foot on the dance floor.
Then I dropped an entire margarita on myself at the bar.
I hadn't even had a chance to get drunk.
The stars were aligned against me, it seemed.

But then I looked up and saw
The real stars in the sky, over the long stretch of beach.
It was a purple sky, the kind of sky you only see
On those gentle summer nights, when the
Moon is merely a sliver that emits a touch of light, and the
Clouds are just streaks in the distance.

And on that soft summer night, under a purple sky,
As the waves rhythmically drummed a beat in time with the
Music that was suddenly circling around us,
I saw a man, with tan skin and a warm smile,
Sparkling hazel eyes and wavy brown hair.
He reached out to me, his arms open, and
We started to dance.

I forgot about my injured feet,
I forgot about the spilled drink.
I forgot about feeling awkward or self-conscious.
I danced, on that soft night,
Feelings those gentle winds,
Not worrying about anything
Because of his confident step and strong arms
Leading me in the movement.
Under a purple sky that was,
In that moment,
As beautiful as any sky could be.

Apricots

What did I notice about you the first time I saw you?
I remember your eyes, dark and piercing through the haze in the bar.
I remember your hair, shiny and thick.
I remember you wore a hat.
I remember that you were not alone.

You came up to talk to me anyway,
And we talked about meaningless things, the way people do
When they are really thinking other things
About each other.
I tried to be funny, turning a lock of my long hair into a fake moustache.
I’m sure you could tell that I was nervous,
But you laughed anyway.
I’m not sure how or why, but somehow,
We kissed each other,
In the middle of a crowded room,
And then, so suddenly, you were gone.
Yet you were still there, on the fringes of my life,
Just a few words that appeared on a screen now and then,
When I’d least expect it,
Just a face,
Beautiful but distant,
Nothing I could touch, but
Nothing I could forget.

Months passed, a year really, and then suddenly,
There you were again, standing in the same place,
On a night very much the same as the first night,
And once again, it was your eyes that caught me and
Made me a little nervous, though less so this time.
You were wearing that same hat, and soon enough
We were alone together, and
There was nothing between us;
No bad jokes,
No fake moustaches,
No hat.
Yet we were very far apart.
I knew this somehow, yet I felt at ease despite the distance,
Enough to fall asleep when you slipped out to go to the store,
And again when you returned
To slip into the bed beside me.

In the earliest part of the morning,
When the first light creeps up slowly and
Diffuses through the atmosphere,
You can see things in a different way.
Not clearly, as you do when the sun is very bright,
Or even at night, under glaring electric lights.
No, in that part of the day, the light is so soft that
There are few colors.
Everything seems gray.
Yet on that morning,
When I awoke hours before you did,
And slipped out of the bed to dress quietly
So as not to wake you,
And scribbled a note to say goodbye, I
Turned to look at you one last time.

You were sleeping so quietly, your
Breathing so soft, and I
Thought for a moment that your skin looked
As if it were made of apricots.
Like a sweet, amber-colored fruit
Hanging from a broad-branched tree
In a walled garden,
On a hillside somewhere far away,
Maybe in Cappadocia.
I don’t know why this thought came into my mind
At that moment, but I knew
As I slipped into my shoes and placed
The note on the table beside you,
And touched the tips of my fingers to
The skin that made me think of apricots
That somehow I’d find a way
To taste it again.

On the Threshing Floor

Your home was far from mine;
Its fields of barley and windswept hills
Unlike the valleys I had known, yet
The light in your eyes welcomed me,
A stranger, as I told you that day when
We first met.

The sun kissed your bearded face and
Breezes ruffled your long, dark hair.
Drawn to you, I did not worry that
You would shun me, for being without
Family, money, husband, status.
Your eyes told me I was home.

When I told her that I had met you,
And let the sound of your name
Touch my lips for the first time,
She urged me to go to you, to find you,
At night, in the darkness, on the threshing floor.
Go to him, she said. Go tonight. Go and find him.
Uncover him and lie with him,
On the threshing floor.

I wanted this, and wanted you,
And so much more, to be with you as
Your own, and to have you as my own,
But I know that I was also driven by
My empty pockets, my empty future, so I
Flew through the darkness to the
Threshing floor.
And there I found you.
Lying on the ground, asleep, your face
Softened by hours of work and a bit of drink,
And your eyes were closed, so I could not see
Their light, and the dark lashes lay gently
Against your cheeks, blushed by the sun and winds.

Tiptoeing around the other snoring men I
Came to stand at your feet and
As quietly as I could, lifted your robe at the hem.
Awakening, your eyes could not make out my face
In the darkness, in the still air but I whispered
To you and you knew me.
And you drew me in, and you held me,
And we lay there for hours,
Covered by your robe in the darkness of the
Threshing floor.

At the Mercy of the Moon

Tripping over myself
In an attempt to look like I was in control in
A crowded room, on a humid night, amid a hundred people
Drinking, dancing, laughing, and
Watching each other.

I didn't even see you on the dance floor.
I saw other faces, some familiar, some strange.
I heard voices swallowing each other, and I heard the
Endless thrum of the music
Outside and inside.
But then in a second I turned around and you were there.
You looked into my eyes briefly and we started to dance.
Contrary to habit I didn't think about it or analyze it.
I just danced, feeling your skin, your sweat, your warmth
Pressing into mine.

It's on those nights in the middle of August that
Excitement and movement can make it impossible to breathe.
We tumbled out the door, onto the patio, and into
Arms that were yielding as soft rubber, kisses hungry like a
Thirsty cat drinking water.
Somehow, we kept moving, moving to the music and the shouts,
Off the patio and onto the lawn.

My mind came back to me at the worst time, protesting such
A display of abandon with someone whose name I'd barely known
For less than an hour, but I quickly shut down that voice and
Focused on the feel of your warm skin, the cool wet grass, the still air
and the thick blanket of darkness around us.

Until suddenly, illumination.
A sluggish summer cloud wandered on its way and revealed the
Klieg light of a full moon above us
Showing our bodies entwined as clear
As if we were playing on the lawn at noon.

Yet no voices shouted, the music kept raging, and you
Would not let me pull away.
We paused for a breath at last, and in a moment,
Conspired to break away to a distant place, a
More private place.
Our plot was cast just in time, for
Another set of glaring lights approached us from the side;
A helpful police cruiser, sirenless, lit us as we reclined.
Like guilty sophomores we dashed off, off into the night,
Our path lit only by the occasional glimpse of that merciless moon.

It was only hours later that I saw that moon again,
Or noticed it, perhaps.
Streaming through the slats of the blinds,
The moonlight showed me the side of your body,
And I suppressed a gasp as I saw
A trail of marks, scars of a past battle, something you
Had powerfully overcome.
I traced a hand softly down your skin, and felt only
The merest trace of whatever had ravaged you,
And you said nothing.
Your breath was soft and still.

And when the moon was obscured once again
By one of those slow summer clouds,
Your body was once again only something I felt
Rather than saw, and you felt strong and safe
To press against, so I shut the voice down again and
We curled together in the darkness.