Friday, June 23, 2017

On a Friday when I didn’t wake up well:


 
Ripe with a pending storm, clouds stir. Wind wrenches dark streaks against a heavy sky…which does not explain why I am remembering a bitter winter morning, just two fingers poking from my gloves to shift or steer and staring through frost on the VW's windshield. The glass was ablaze with sunrise on a narrow bay road in Long Island, 1994-ish.

I was leaving at dawn, slipping from a warm bed in a corner of his messy rented room. Dirty clothes, burnt-down candles, old spaghetti-stained dishes, and piles and piles of cigarette butts. I could smell his shampoo in my hair: love love love. It went sour by summertime.

 A different girl and a different him in another place…

Lipstick smudged on the rim, she sets down her Pinot Grigio: I thought about him all day yesterday, she said. Five minutes passed and I waited another five without touching the phone, then another five and finally it was Midnight and too late to call.

 She’s a girl in a quiet corner somewhere with almost tears puddled in her eyes, dreaming about a guy. What does he feel like? Is he hungry? Is he gentle? Does he even care?