Between High-Up Limbs of the Baobab Trees

How he leaned on me at the end, sometimes glaring, eyes filled with the old familiar rage. The swale in which I realized everything was the same, thus equal, and that only nonviolence was sufficient to undo the illusion of separation and personal interests. Glass crucifixes. Candles always remind me of church, I was so happy lighting them as an altar boy. I mean, who doesn’t want a penis?

Listening to ice melt, chickadees singing up and down Main Street, the dawn still soft enough that those who pass through it cause no disturbance. Decision-making. Chrisoula has stopped asking can we get rid of the bamboo wind chimes so, you know, small steps. We would walk at night away from the fire, lay down together in the grass and make love, and after I would rest my head on your thigh and watch stars flicker between high-up limbs of the Baobab trees. Shame is learned, guilt is natural.

A clock so far away I cannot read what it says. Birthday wishes received days late. There is no center anywhere, is what we struggle so hard to accept. It was hard to breathe down there, and when I came back, my chest was ruined, my throat a dry hollow. Caramels, Swedish Fish and Smarties, why do you ask?

Paramours. Do you remember being disappointed by the mail? Drinking wine from the bottle after everyone had gone to bed, leaning against those trees that grew next to the lake, the exhaustion that would later characterize so much of living just beginning. Sacred birch groves. Gaps in understanding it takes two to bridge, are you listening.