Distant objects

Driving home this morning, a view from Sideroad 20.

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Now we are home, standing across the empty room. Why don't you shoot me down? You just stand, letting winter light through these upstairs windows finger your cheek. It plays across leaves of the potted ivy. The same with your skin; purple veins spread and burst. If it breaks your temple, our whole life drains through sluice gates.

You keep facing me. Cards on the table, each of us playing our lives, hoping to get a point or two ahead of the other so we can stop for breath. Then we can look back. Neither one ever wins, but we both need the hand up. You stand in black like somebody died. I stand here naked like I want to make love, but I only want you to hold me.

Hear the floorboards squeak when you shift your weight and move toward me. Bright eyes of grit lie randomly across the wood. Flocks of dust rise and migrate through our visions, casting shadows we can't even see. The whole universe might come between us, but I would still see you red shifting to the beginning of my life. As if you waited there forever, so far that time pulls you away.

The gravity between us is still greater than anything. Even small particles at opposite ends of the universe exert a pull on one another. Some say they push at so great a distance. We're still figuring out how our bodies influence one another. With a strong telescope I could see better.

The sun moves and shadows fall across your face. Your brown eyes are mysterious like the blink of a moth's wing against the window on a summer night. The colour is intriguing. If I had a net, I would catch it and scales would be lost, sifting through the clouds of dust. But I don't, so I stand fixed in the spot, still hoping, which is better after all.

If I sit down I might spill the coffee. That's what prevents me from catching anything: I still have the cup in my hands, too full to move, too hot to sip. If I burn my tongue, I would not be able to taste your flesh when I close my lips on it, or feel the pulse that speaks of rising pleasure.

I go to the window. Starlings on the wire shriek like it's early spring. The city smells of pavement wet with melting snow. The birds are dark, but their speech is iridescent, metallic, voices pleading for attention. It's a constant hunger. The one who plays the lowest card will have the choice of saying no.