Wednesday, May 2, 2012

the night i knew

It was a lightning flash coming towards me
from your mouth and hands and animated gestures,
penetrating my head and body. We were standing in
your former home, late at night, the current resident on a trip.
You were gesticulating, pointing to this, and to that;
those things that had their origins in your head
but now servicing someone else. And when the words were exclaimed,

the flash,

and the feelings that erupted inside me.
I wanted to say what you had done was a thing of beauty,
that I had been with you then, not him,
and that I had appreciated every single, tiny wife-y touch
you put on that house. The pride in your voice sustained that lightning bolt,
centering things, hovering it before my eyes;
causing me to envision, or believe I could envision,
futures where a meal might bake, steam rising from the dish

like lighting on pause

until inhaled to complete the hallucination.
So I grabbed you with both hands,
spinning you around, jabbering something, ultimately unable
to articulate the feelings and the hunger and the steam,
or the strength with which they came.