A Sin for which We Must Answer

Boundaries are not imaginary, don’t make that error. Kissing out back by the horses, slipping my hand under her shirt to feel the warm bones of her back. Those of us who grow up fighting. The hippies were happy and beautiful, and once in a while they told me secrets (like the sun was a star), and my life was changed accordingly. Mist everywhere, floating from the river through the pasture, the valley shrouded in wet silver.

 

This will have to be enough – how often do we say that to ourselves? There is no art to smoothies in my life – whatever fruits and vegetables are available get thrown in with garlic, protein powder and water, call it a meal. Dad visits, sits shyly near the apple trees admiring the horses, waving when I glance over, laid back in a way he could be but rarely was when alive. Plans to drive to the Cape, smell the ocean and re-home some rocks we took, back when we were the marrying type. One does not “spend” the night, though I stipulate at times it can seem so.

 

Removing my glasses, rubbing my eyes. The drive home is always happy, praying a rosary between the college and where Route Nine begins, something in the repetition making the crowded traffic easier. The oxen were Chianinas, they were impossibly large, and more graceful than you would think, stepping carefully towards us through the rain. Texting old friends, one last time in this life. Why does the moon insist on playing games with me, even at this late - and getting later – juncture?

 

How terrified of dying the chickens were, and how we killed them anyway and ate them, and will this, too, in lifetimes to come, be a sin for which we must answer? Clouds at dusk rimmed with gold light. We brag a lot about our capacity for design and engineering but I think often of the Titanic, our collective need to be humble and patient. Folks around whom I stumble trying to speak. Inner peace, that beautiful mirage ever shimmering in the distance.