This morning on Constance Street, in your camelback apartment, in your beige-carpeted room, on the air mattress whose holes you have finally patched, under the grandmother quilt, you lay on my stomach, rest upon me, and I don’t know if you are suffocating me or if I am supporting your weight.
Hidden from sight, I can barely hear your breathing. You warm me better than the sheets because your temperature hasn’t yet risen from sleep. I spit out phlegm in the half-empty beer can, and I meekly embrace you. Sliding your feet each on the other, as is your way at night and when you wake up, I can still see the boy in the revolutionist.
To know you, to love you is to look for you in everyone else. You outstrip the rules of no-you-can’t. Male and female he created them, but you have created something in between, but every morning you still must choose a face to show. You challenge what’s powerful, and you challenge me. Your hair is as long as a river. The discotheque and the library both house you. We have gamboled in the quarter on whiskey and trampled through history because you know what happened at the beginning.
This morning, I think you still might love me mightily, but there is always your future to love more. So many years of in-between, man-and-wife, and beer bachelors—whatever we are and are not—you are the companion of my life. I shake you to rouse you up and out into the city, to take us to the bakery. You groan; I pull and crack your bones, a hatchling blinking. It’s hard to kiss you in the sun.
I think that the picture you chose perfectly compliments your piece. It really doesn't set a scene, or take away from your words, but instead instantiates a mood, or tone that only enhances your prose. I do start to get lost in the middle between the scene and then the person, a paragraph break might be helpful. Still some things are confusing so if thats not the intention it might help to add "buffer" lines. Without strong breaks in thought the feel of the piece gets lost. A little spacing could do a lot.
ReplyDeleteI like the how you've constructed a scene from everyday life. Much is left to the readers imagination, but there are plenty of clues, such as the grandmothers blanket that give a familiar feel. The language gives a very peaceful mood though out. Nice use of pictures.
ReplyDeleteNot sure whats this means, "in your camelback apartment" but I got a creepy feeling from "grandmother quilt, you lay on my stomach, rest upon me, and I don’t know if you are suffocating me or if I am supporting your weight" as if the narrator is a voyeur watching the person resting on chest instead of feelngs of warmth and passion/coziness. "You warm me better than the sheets because your temperature hasn’t yet risen from sleep," how can the person sleeping warm the narrator when she herself is cold?
ReplyDeleteA camelback refers to the second floor of a shotgun-style house.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the character in the piece is clearly identified as male. The author is male, so to write "when SHE herself is cold" is an oversight I think worth pointing out.
This is such a lovely description of a relationship because you manage to make it accessible and unique. I love your focus on the in between the fact that your lover's gender is of little importance because they are so spectacular that they go beyond gender and are simply a person. I love your details, especially the unexpectedly grimy ones like "I spit out phlegm in the half-empty beer can". I would try it in third person just because second is a little confusing and convolutes the simplicity of the sentiment of gratitude for this person's presence in your life.
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