by L.A. Madison
(12/22/10)
Today as I walked in the park, watching ground squirrels with my daughter, Canada geese cropping grass only two feet away, little terns stabbing the water with a squawk, you came along, inside me, breathing with my breath, stirring me up.
When I ate my breakfast of broiled tomatoes and bacon-fried eggs, read the political cartoons, you tugged at me. Interrupted with dreams of me sitting on your hips, naked, leaning over to kiss your lips, you inside me. Precious. Ecstasy. I'm afraid as I walk in the park, my eyes will give me away, desire pouring out of them.
I may never have you again. I probably won't. A kiss, your kiss, makes everything so much worse. I knew it the time you left the building with me that evening. My heart was so full of dread and desire, I almost had to bend forward and hold my stomach. You said something crazy as if it were ordinary -- "Hey, walk down the block with me a minute" -- and instantly I turned and joined you, trying to convey in a calm and loving manner that nothing you said would be taken amiss; you had nothing to fear.
What did we talk about? The evening star. But neither of us called it Venus. Every subject seemed so fraught. We had to stop. Out by the levees, we stopped by the mimosa because in that rare humid night, it smelled so intoxicating. I could hardly keep back tears. You were tense. I touched a branch with a fingertip as if I were touching you. When I looked in your eyes, the blood drained away from your face. I had to touch your arm. So softly. I had to. When you kissed me, the months of desire came out through my lips in a groan. I no longer cared who saw us. I had to tell you with the softness of my mouth, oh how much I wanted you. You were so gentle I melted. You had to hold me up. If only I could have stayed there forever, trembling, slaking my thirst and giving you all you wanted. Oh. To touch the rough edge of hair on the back of your head. It all became so easy. I read you. Some inner Geiger counter told me how to touch you, when. How marvelously accurate it was! How my legs began to shake and there was nothing in the world but desire. We improvised desperately. My coat became our sheet on the ground. At last, at last our warm bodies melded, slick like animals, and we, our thinking selves, were merely bystanders, present as the tsunami hit.
Thoughts are things too. That's what the wise ones say. And thus I'm guilty, guilty, guilty of cooking this up, putting it on the fire to boil when I ought to have walked past and left it on the vine. But oh, it caught me with its sweet scent. I had to stop and look, admire, lift it up and inhale, feel the smoothness. Love is a plum, a peach, not an apple. I wanted to take it home, feel it in my hand, succulent, promising. Hide it somehow, and bring it out in private. A fruit that never rots. A fruit I never get to eat.
