The limbs of trees sag with the collection of too many snow storms in too little time, like Atlas condemned to hold up the world or the sky, to keep us from being crushed by the weight of it
we never quite get
our feet planted before some new burden befalls us. so we live like the trees must, enduring,
none of it seems fair,
we are always ask to bear more of the burden that is our share and often beyond
our capacity
yet somehow we do
this, being what life is, that distance between birth and grave, with little
recognition for our efforts, except if we are lucky
some aspect of faith that allows us to be remembered when
most are not
we like Atlas holding up the corners of the universe until
someone with wider shoulders relieves us
I have no presents to wrap other than the ones I've already
given, no vision of Santa nor our stockings over the fireplace I do not have
15 days out from the holiday, I feel none of that I once did,
the murfs I gave the band and groupies, small presents I scrounged to get when I lacked
cash for anything large
no Korvettes
department store for purchase cheap records
for people who hated my choices of music
no large sign from a tree lot we bought because it's spelled
out the last name of our mutual friend and he desperate to ignore as it was
propped over his door
fleeing as if our gift was a stocking full of coal as
opposed to a mug full of Christmas cheer
these gifts already given and yet in my mind still perfect
as if we could do it all over again
as if we could even
for people who have since come to dislike us
she once saying she
didn't hate all men just some and looked at me
I travel the wrong way on this train, South instead of North,
though even if I had the ticket to take the other way, this train won't take me
as far as I would need to go
the cold river
flowing alongside of these tracks, making me think I might make the trip
upstream by boat when even that is not possible
no welcome mat on her
doorstep for me
I ride this train to places I have been before, seeing sites
I've seen
only none of these
are connected to ones that recall with her
her old world clinging
to the cliffs where I stroll from time to time, feeling the absence she's left
behind long ago and now far away, this place where no train goes, in a
direction impossible to trace. a one-way ticket to nowhere
I stroll the promenade of the Jersey City waterfront down
in the haunted valley of some business building and residential towers I could
never afford
a place which has no
memories of her to remind me of what I might have felt
strolling along the
same river farther north and yet I still feel haunted the way I might strolling
through a graveyard
these monolithic buildings instead of gravestones, her
imprint on me if not on the landscape
her journey she
details and essay, an echo of other things she has seen, other places she has
been, none of which has anything to do with me
good or bad; right or
wrong
her struggle sitting
inside me like poorly ingested meal I can either regurgitate nor get digested,
sitting heavy inside m, an added weight I must continue to carry wherever I
walk
It is the end of day, The creep of darkness, the murmur of the city that never
sleeps only slumbers, with the occasional jolt of a horn or a moan of a siren.
I linger on the edge of consciousness still the voyeur, still following bread
crumbs through a forest that leads me nowhere, her life like an old fairy tale
in which no Prince emerges, and still she follows along, looking over her
shoulder for the Big bad Wolf, still hoping to get to Grandma's house, hoping
it isn't another wolf in disguise, all of them strewn along the trail behind her with teeth she once
admired but now she's come to realize they all want the same thing, want more
than she can afford to give
Still, I see her
Shadow at the edge of the dream, lost in the woods hurting. needing to be
rescued
More than Champayne corks pop on this new Day of a new year,
the rise and fall, the come and go, the urge to surge, not a resolution for
what will occur, but the resolve to feel it all here and now, the soft touch,
the pressed lips, the in and out, timed to time’s changing, the celebration, the
ball dropping as we take the plunge, the feel of it as overwhelming and the
drinks we consume, as we consume each other, the scent of perfume, the glitter
of lipstick the slow, patient twist of buttons, discarding all that is not essential
for this ritual, this dance, the swell of it rising for the occasion, the moans
filling in where words are not necessary, as we drink deeply this draught like honey
Never did I think I would live this long, many of whom I loved
have not, this fallacy of immortality we ache to achieve, eternal life leading
us to perpetual isolation. The fragments of love littering our path from the
past, if not like rose pedals, then lilies.
I can remember the first girl I kissed and the last, while
in-between I linger over those that mattered most, still matter in memory, like
a rose accompanied by its thorns that still trickle with drips of blood from where
each pricked me when I tried to hold too tight.
I remember what I want to remember, repainting love into
something far less painful than it turned out to be, still tasting that kiss,
feeling its importance and my reluctance to shed it, when it’s all that I have
left.
All these years later
I pass this place
And think of her
That summer
Of that terrible heat
Inside me and out,
when I did nothing right.
She coming here
A year before I did,
With whom,
I can only guess,
It just wasn’t with me,
The girl I saw
In the sun dress
In our lobby,
Large sunglasses
And a look
That made me ache
Picturing her dancing on
The sand and pier
And bedsheets
Of that magnificent
She should be over joyed being here, in a place like this,
she thinks as she fingers the elaborate wooden carved bed frame, something out of
a Charles Dickens novel, as is the whole sea side town they have come to for
the weekend.
She moves over to the bay windows where she looks out on
Main Street and can just see the small shops that line either side, candy and
ice cream, wind chimes and such, things that might please her another time, but
not now.
She keeps looking at her phone, waiting for it to ping with
the arrival of a text she knows will not come.
“He’s not thinking of me,” she thinks, sadly, a bit angry at
him, at herself, thinking she’s been deserted, and perhaps part of the reason
she agreed to come here with this other man, maybe to made the man she really
wants a little jealous, only the whole plan seems to have backfired, and she’s
here, alone with him, for an extended weekend.
Her man is somewhere else,, maybe with someone else, too, as
if they have come up with the same nasty idea at the same time.
What do they say, great minds and all that? And she wonders
if he is as miserable being with the other woman, as she is being with this
other man?
“Is something wrong?” this man asks, calling from where he
is unpacking his bags near the dresser, a familiar face, who has planned this
little get away for some time, his wife somewhere visiting relatives elsewhere,
as far away as her man is from her, only this man is relieved where she is in
pain.
“No, everything is fine,” she calls back, aware of how
hollow her lie sounds.
She should be grateful.
This man is trying to make this a special weekend for her, opening up
his purse strings for something very special, something memorable, a tender
memory she might take home and cherish for the rest of the summer, only he’s
not the man she wants, and he in some ways knows it, doesn’t care, all he wants
to do is fuck her, and she knows that, too.
She wants love; he wants sex and is willing to pretty it all
up to make it seem something more, something romantic, only it just isn’t love
regardless of how he packages it.
“Are you expecting a call?” he asks, coming back towards the
large bed with its huge white pillows, glowing a bit in the slanted sea side
sunshine, a religious community, she thinks, giggling a bit inside when
imagining what all the good Christians with their prayer books might think if
they sense what he and she have planned.
“No, not really,” she says, and turns the phone off,
reluctantly, cutting off her last possible contact and the last possible chance
she might hear from him over the weekend.
She sighs. She owes it to him to give him a good time after
all the trouble and expense, this man who she agreed to come with. She should
at least pretend to have fun.
She doesn’t expect love from him; and she’s not dead set
against getting a bit of pleasure from him, maybe he’ll be as good a lover as
he claims he is.
Perhaps he can even satisfy her. Sometimes all she can
expect from any man is for them to make her cum.
Only he wants to have sex right away and gets a bit
suspicious when she says she wants to go for a walk on the beach first,
stalling the inevitable for a little while anyway, good or bad, satisfying or
not.
Her brain is spinning and she is overwhelmed with confused
feelings, and hopes she won’t wake up early in the morning like she sometimes
does when she’s alone at home, that hamster in her brain rallying around on the
wheel in her head, thinking of him then and now, the man she wants to be with
and can’t, and regardless of how much this man spent on this little adventure,
she wants to be with the other man, basking here in luxury or even in some sleazy
motel. Being with him anywhere is enough.
She keeps thinking about the phone, how he might text, and
how she would not know about it, and cannot answer. He – that distant he –
might think she doesn’t care.
Reluctantly, this man leads her out, through the lush halls
of the hotel, down the wide gilded steps to the street, then up the street, in
the opposite direction of the stores to the wide street bordering the beach,
she pausing to glance at the open air place of prayer with its seats facing the
ocean and the large wooden cross sticking up out of the sand.
They walk to the end of the pier that points out into the
waves, a cluster of stone at its feet, a strong breeze blowing back her hair as
she clings to the railing, a breeze that helps clear her head.
“I suppose to be having a good time,” she thinks. “Why am I
here if I’m not?”
There is something awesome about this place, cluttered with
its religious icons, as if she was in a temple built for ancient gods, gods
that walked with her, instead of the man whom she has come with.
She pretends she is there with the man she loves, holding
his hand, feeling his loving touch, seeing his loving look, hearing his loving
words whispered in her ears.
Then when this man presses against her, kissing her
passionately, she pretends it is the man she loves, wishing more than anything
it was.
They break off the embrace to watch the sun set, its long glittering
reflection stretching the whole way down the shore line, a magical moment,
imagined being with that other man.
But the whole illusion bursts when this man insists they go
back to the hotel.
“We came here to fuck,” he said, “not look at pretty sunsets.”
Fucking is all he ever thinks about, as she does, too, but
as much as she needs to, she again craves the other man, his touch, his scent.
This man wants to get as much fucking in as he can for the weekend
and wants to start before they go to dinner.
The whole situation seems absurd.
But she nods, and accompanies him back to the promenade,
then to the hotel again, that magnificent building with gold trim glittering
with the last vestige of the sinking sun.
Once in the room again, he won’t be denied, pulling off her
blouse and pants, pushing down onto the bed, mounting her like a dog mounting a
bitch, which to him she supposes she is.
He is rough, pounding the life out of her, his cock going
deep into her.
She likes I rough, and yet for some reason, feels little
real pleasure in the act, feeling his arrogance as he fucks her, each thrust a
declaration of dominance, she almost resents, almost wanting to make him stop,
only, she likes being fucked, closing her eyes, trying again to imagine it is
the man she wants, and feeling his hard cock using her to please her, rather
than just to get off.
With this man, she is going through the motions like a
puppet, feeling this man inside her, on top of her, his mouth on hers, but it
only confuses her more, making he ache for the other man, wishing she could
rush into those arms and have him fuck her the right way.
It’s only sex, she tells herself. She’s been through worse –
and cringes over that time when, well, a time she doesn’t think about.
She has to tell herself in the midst of this that this man means
well, even if his lovemaking is selfish, and she really does want to enjoy it,
and in another time and place, if there was not this other man somewhere, she might
enjoy it more.
When it is over, they go down to the dining room for a meal.
She feels the magic of the place, the table cloths and silverware, and sees
herself dressed up, a regular Cinderella absent the pumpkin coach and glass
slippers.
Will her prince charming come to see if the slipper fits?
Yet as beautiful as it all is, and romantic, she can’t
appreciate it, or this man. He is simply the wrong man, regardless of how good
the sex is. She isn’t happy, and longing
for more than this man just can’t provide.
In the room again, he rides her once more, harder even than
before, almost ruthless, and she takes it, even enjoys it, perhaps like a good
Christian, punishing herself for all her indiscretion, for coming here with the
wrong man, for trying to make the right man jealous.
Later, this man falls asleep, she sneaks out, down to the
street, and then back to the pier that stretches out into the ocean where the
sea breeze blows back her hair and dries her tears.
Then, in the dark before dawn, she switches back on her
phone, and fines a message: “miss you,”
Maybe it’s the ocean. Maybe it is the breeze, but suddenly
all the weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She texts back, “Wish you
were here.”
Her life floats down on a feather,
like that scene from Forest Gump, fluttering this way and that, carrying all
her hopes and dreams, though she is clueless as to where it will eventually land.
Her life always that proverbial
box of chocolates, she never knowing what she will get next. Does she poke each piece to see if
it is hard of soft, from which she might guess which flabor it might be?
Does she plot out her life on her
telephone, relying on GPS to steer her when even that might direct her wrongly?
Can she turn back if she comes to a dead end?
Can she put the pieces of candy
back without having tasted any, and still be sure she hasn’t missed something,
put what she wanted in the mix, and one returned impossible to retrieve again?
I pass the place where she used
to reside, the ground floor store decorated for Christmas, not the same store
as when she lived upstairs, yet all the rest is the the same, the church yard
next door, though the window she used to perch in are closed, like pennies on
eyes, of something long expired. I stroll here now much more bravely than I once
might have, knowing there is no threat of seeing her, except in the back of my
head. She is a photograph that never changes for me, when I know she must have,
seeing her face on what she posts, different, yet the same, yet not the same
face I can paste up in that window, she having moved on from this world to some
other in which I play no role, a Shakesperian tragedy in which we all have our
brief time on the stage. The stage remains. The players have changed.
She curls up like a snail inside
her shell, antenna poking out into the cold air, shifting this way and that, vibrating
to the dangers of the wide world without, no way to know her, she shifts shells
so quickly, never giving anyone the chance to climb inside the shell beside
her, to loo out to see what she sees, to feel each tremble she feels and to
sense what makes her so afraid. She is not the girl who sells sea shells by the
sea shore, but the one who inhabits them, to see which will fit her best,
knowing the whole time she well never get too comfortable in any of them, knowing
she will need to flee each sooner or later, and must be prepared to keep; from
being too attached.
It is always electric, even in memory, the static charge of
fingers against flesh, when each comes into contact, the energy running down
from fingers to toes, where I tough, stirring up that power plant that needs no
incentive to spring to life, it is as potent as a nuclear reaction, the lips
that touch lips, the hips that rub hips, chest to chest, an atomic dance that
shakes me long after the meltdown as gone, a charge stored up inside me as if I
am a battered, sparking at each imagined interaction, suppressed at great
effort to keep me from imploding again, even if only in my mind.
