Beside me, a man’s form
rests solidly beneath morning haze.
I am continuously surprised by its size in comparison to mine:
the weight of his warmth.
I curl into the Thereness;
my chest to his, our fingers intertwined.
His palms hardened from years of working with his hands—
A man’s hands,
contrasting to the gentleness of his touch
and vulnerability laid across his face—
lips slightly parted in sleep.
“I would marry you tonight” he had said.
Possibility sent electric shivers down my spine:
The chance to be his, totally, forever.
Breathtaking insanity.
So after the intensity of a moment’s deliberation,
love enveloped us from the inside out
while warmth multiplied into happy glow
encompassing our kneeling figures.
Vows tumbled out two sets of lips, unplanned and unrehearsed—
under God, with each other,
the truest form of intimacy.
Beside me, a beautiful man
anchors me to reality of a world suddenly become wondrous.
My eyes trace the sunlight
dancing on the contours of a painted arm.
A word slips from my tongue, magic
swirling the air until it settles into the space between our noses:
“Husband.”
And the invincibility of joy
overcomes all else
as I begin the first day of never being alone.
desperate shadows;
they suspend from cobwebs
(aching from the ceiling)
trailing through air
as if hair drifting in open water.
The window is ever clamped shut;
no escape there.
So shadows remain:
charcoal echoes.
Alone–
but for a space-heater weeping silently
on the lonely wood floor.
No footsteps tread these tired boards–
Only memories, packed tightly into
the wires of two burnt out light-bulbs
(no energy left to threaten
our elusive remnants.)
Shadows, longing with the doorways,
and the peeling-plaster,
and desk that steals too much floor space,
desiring the same unspoken wish.
No more waiting!
No more reliance on some
unreliable girl.
To move them.
Only the book understands;
abandoned, gathering dust,
on the submissive bedside table.
Its ink collapsing
inside dying pages.
Trying to make sense of
her broken promises,
wistfully remembering the last time
her unpredictable pen
danced across its pages.
Now held,
not by her warm hands
but the lonesome,
gasping,
shadows."
as I sit, surrounded
by empty canvases and a palette full
of inarticulate desire.
Thunder threatens to break the hazy light of seeming calm
as it settles into the night air,
reminding me to close my window.
But the weight of emptiness paralyzes my limbs,
though my hand closes around a paintbrush.
And though I sit bound by stillness,
colors dance behind open lids
to the beat of my heart pulsing in my left wrist:
strokes of crimson regret fading in and out under the overlay
of a wistful moon’s azure reflection.
But the brightest patterns dissipate into hesitation
before my tired fingers can distinguish their form.
And I remain alone,
but for the hum of night whistling through my open window,
and a lap-full of blank canvas:
a testament to indecision."
