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.
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.
