Everything was a flower.
The air was the calyx.
The earth, the stem.
The Sun,
The Stars were filament tips,
And deep inside the calyx were your hands, leading me to the edge of the water to breathe in the morning together,
blossoming, burning, diving with the sun in the resting sea.

And here we are, now, watching the wind gently ruffle the cypress rows like a quiet sigh.
They stretch out tall like eager stamens,
while the perianth closes around us,
and we drown.

Went out after dinner and walked aimlessly down to the shore. The cat followed me, sad and silent. We went past some men cutting up a log of driftwood. The sky was rose and the sea pale green, and there was a thick mist on the shore, through which the men at the timber loomed large as we walked over the pebbles.

When we came back, I knelt down on the lawn, twisting bits of dewy grass between my fingers while calling up an owl. Warm sparks from bonfires peppered the air, across the bay a distant murmur of boy scouts singing and their tents glowing in the dark. And I sat for a while, alone, the light in your bedroom window shining out over the fields.

January, 2012

Are you depressed then? He asks as if it were a real question. No, I am not, she wants to say, as she nods. I am not depressed. I am still me; but my thoughts run to sadness like a little boy with bloody knees to his mother, only she never sits down to pick him up for her embrace. 

January, 2012

I will begin from the beginning, where the wash of the waves rhythmically and quietly, in offshore wind, calmly, with a soft sizzle and a white fillet of foam, taps on the sand, the spit and the fine pebbles, and runs playfully to shore, flattening almost imperceptibly, like the tail of the lion in the afternoon sun, breathing in the shadow of the Acacia tree, fearlessly closing his eyes and dozing off.

I will begin from the sea one dawn, when the gentle swells catch the sun in glimpses, stars, mirrors of tiny suns, and the great swing of the clouds swings lightly in the morning breeze, like your mind swings lightly, swings away from stars and planets and infinities. It is not a time for musing and pondering, it is a time for wonder, at how pure the sand is, and how carefully the umbrella sways, and how warmly the shoulders heave over round breasts and sun-kissed blankets.

Ribs and skin under the cover of the sand dunes, where the wind runs in the lyme grass and your limbs are warm, your hands find someone else’s warm skin, soft curves, and you meet in hard kisses flashing like granite or sun glare on waves. Out there is the rythm of the wash, the clear, swelling, heavy wave breaking white for land. In here on the beach, the grains of dried-up summers.

October, 2010

We used to be at home in the woods, we would pick windflowers on Friday evenings in the weeks after Easter, as church bells rang down the sun. Two by two with braided blonde hair in the early gloaming or with open collars we’d walk and listen to each other’s voices. 

We were too rich, too lavish, forgot that the bonfire would soon burn down and catch a corner of our mantle, that we’d survive no more than grass or a spider’s web. Lost, we stumbled around like young priests, grasping for a ceremony, rambling a part of a hymn that’s supposed to belong, the light of the chestnuts burned down, the autumnal organ, the bread and wine of the fields passed around.

Now August blazes. It is late. Silently, phosphorescence and summer lightning envelop our boats, filled with fish in sinewy nets. The sea is quiet and black, and we don’t talk. And then we return to our houses, and in the cocoons of our living rooms the clocks say their dry “die, die, die”, and the breathing of the child answers a faint “oh no, oh no”. It is too hot, even our fears are sweating. 

Every day we say our goodbyes. Let us not fight today, my love, about little incalculabilities. Come, we’ll go and see for one last time these seagulls flying in this sunlight and this breeze. Meet me then in May, when the butterflies fly gentle-sightedly with chaste, dusted wings.

And finally, on the seventh day, we invented the dreams. Ssssh, you said, when I wanted us to start inventing something. Because after making all the words, we now knew everything, but everything was just scarier yet. Even the setting sun became a menacing mouth in the sky, a hungry carp mouth with dark tattered corners, breathing dusk-water through bloody cloud-gills. And you became more frightened for each passing day. So we invented the dreams, as people do when there’s nothing left. 

I invented a dream where we stand by the sea with the endless promise of things new and undiscovered, and a dream where we watch the large boats; I invented dreams of frogs and blankets, dreams where every secret is friendly and benign, like coded snippets of love letters in the pockets of 12 year old girls. I invented a dream where our bed is a home, safe and eternal and hidden from the world, and I invented a dream where we have all the words and you tell me everything. I invented a dream where everything is gentle, buzzing June, and the grain fields are yellowing like bread in the oven of summer.  

On the seventh day, I invented the dreams where you are here, warm and breathing, still.

August, 2010

On the sixth day we invented the words. You had been so quiet for so long that we barely recognized your voice as it burrowed through the soil of your desperate anguish. But there they were, all the words we used to have, even if they didn’t look the same. They used to be so strong and stern, the words we used to roll our boulders up mountain sides. But when the struggle became too hard, when our eyes were bleeding and our hands were burning, we were fools and left the words and kept the boulders.

But on the sixth day we invented all the old words, and even if they were now crooked and slight like the feet of old sparrows, they were still the same. And when you finally came to me, you came in the night, you came carrying words all over your body.

I want you to read me, you said, read me as fast as a burning piece of paper.

August, 2010

On the fifth day we invented the bed, with sheets that were bright and secret like mother-of-pearl. And the nights became safe and soft like honey, as we lay nestled in our new invention, as small children in a pram under linden trees; we would watch the thunder roar, like the child would watch the branches move and hear the leaves whisper over the pram on September evenings. And when the thunder ebbed away at times, the light would turn the sheets into a bright and foaming water around your wondrous shapes, humming siren songs to my thirsty ears.

We should have invented this a long time ago, I said, and you smiled. We should stay here forever, I said, and you looked away, biting your lip, though I didn’t know why at the time.

On the fifth day, we invented the bed. With sheets and pillows and a strange void in the middle.

August, 2010

On the fourth day we just sat there, for a while, tired of all this inventing. We sat on a hill all day, staring into the afternoon, inventing nothing. I thought about inventing the secrets, but then the thunder stretched out its vast drumhead over the fields and the hot scythe of lightning cut its way through blackened clouds. And we got scared.

Then we invented the soft, quilted blankets instead. Just in time, you said. Under the blankets the thunder sounded no more frightening than the frogs we invented yesterday, everything was so safe and warm, and I was happy we invented the blankets. I invented them, anyway. I… I still don’t know about you. I have this feeling that on the fourth day, one of us did invent the secrets, only I didn’t know. 

August, 2010

On the third day we invented the frogs. It was such a quiet day, and we stood by the sea and watched the boats go by. We both knew there was something missing, and for a second I was afraid it was us, that something was wrong between us. That’s what it felt like, anyway, the silence, like there was a cemetery between us, a labyrinth of quiet families we had to step on before we could meet.

But then the frogs started croaking, like slow fingers dragging against a balloon. All day they sang, dumb and useless, and it was the first thing we ever invented that made you laugh. As if finally you had forgotten… it all. I don’t think anyone will ever understand the joy we felt on the third day, when we invented the frogs.

August, 2010

On the second day we invented the large boats, tall and wonderful as they strut out of our ports proudly, aimed for faraway shores. I remember it as if it is happening just now; a long, anxious walk to the waterfront, you nodding knowingly as we arrive in the early morning, almost before we wake up, the pale and slightly chilly air like a membrane of dew frizzling against the skin.

At first there was nothing, and for a second I was scared that the nothing was us. But then the morning air cracked with a deep sound like a long, hungry moan from the sea. Then more, more sounds and large shapes against the horizon. And we knew it wasn’t nothing between us, after all, it was just something new. 

It was the second day of the world, and on the second day we invented the large boats.

August, 2010

On the first day we invented the sea. And just like that, our world was deep and wet, with playful toes tapping down between crests and ripples. I say the first day, because I don’t know of anything before we invented the sea. If we walked on the beach before, it left no imprint, and if we tried to gather sand in our hands, it would slip dryly through our fingers. If there even was a beach, before. I don’t know that they’d call it a beach before we invented the sea.

On the first day we looked at the sea. It made you proud, I could tell. It looked so much like something that had been there forever that nobody would believe us if we told them it was our invention. They would not have understood, anyway. Why, they would ask, why would you think up something so vast, yet we can’t take even a small part out of it, can’t make a dent or a hole, or even walk across it. What is the purpose?

On the first day we invented the sea, a marvelous thing that the sand would stick to my fingers, and I could take your hand and some of it would stick to yours as well, and that our wet feet would leave footprints side by side along the beach.

August, 2010

While the hands stood like stamens, thistle seeds drifted closely past the membrane over our eyes, the storm whipped flakes of skin through the dark like ashes, and shadows raised themselves sharply and incomprehensibly against the grass, the moonlight-soft square between the trees where steps make no noise.

A drop of moon spilled down on us, and the body glowed white in its early darkness.
Then, your eyes, mellow with light, like lines in a letter that finds me anywhere.

August, 2010

the time it took and the distance we covered
the distance we covered and the time
it took to cover the distance in
the time it took us to cover
the distance in the time we took
to cover the distance

the time it took is the time it took
and the time it took us was the distance we covered
between us

August, 2010

If you are the fish
I am the one fishing
If you are the water
I am the one drinking
If you are the lips
I am the one kissing
If you are the eye
I am the one seeing
If you are the language
I am the one talking
If you are the fire
I am the one burning
you

August, 2010