for Graham
Picture a garden, circling it, a field on fire, rich with color, but in that color is lack, and at first, you can assume a grander theme; assume a seduction associated with color or vibrancy, but that’s one of the first things you learn in school: everything is made up of shades.
Black is the absorption of all colors.
*
Do we really get to choose the woman we want to be? Some women play the triangle. I am a conductor.
*
I want to know when my next best time is. I know it’s coming. I know it’s opening like a closed flower in bloom; so much is tilting in my life, towards the sun.
I’m saying yes.
Do you hear me?
*
Last week, I went to get coffee and was short 31 cents and was about to reload my card, and the barista said not to worry about it. I said thank you to her and that gesture, and as I stood there waiting for my coffee, the song in the shop shifted, and instantly I smiled, humming. It was DIDO’s “White Flag.” An epidemic of nostalgia took me captive, held me under, shipwrecked, hidden in the past, and cached in memory. I stood there hoarding my love for that song somewhere inside me. I was buzzing, dizzy. I returned to the animal hospital for visiting hours. My cat, Graham, newly blind, post-seizure, hooked up to IVs, deeply sedated, was cage side. I pet him, and kissed his small pink nose, his mouth and his white tuft on his chest, and then quietly – so quietly – sang in his ear, my little love song for him, the one he likes – our little routine – and he started to wrap his arms around me. He recognized my voice, and in that moment, I thought about angels; I thought about God, as he forced his body onto my arm, and his strength scared me, and then I felt it, the energy, the connection. I knew in that moment, his love for me, my love for him, was the strongest thing I’ve ever felt. His response; his responding; his responding to me was everything, was more than hurt, was more than pain, it was love and I realized then, the bounty of it.
*
Natalie tells me to lean into my heart of hearts.
I am leaning.
The heart is a kaleidoscope.
*
So many women’s lives live on the wings of men and I think about my wingspan; I think about my breadth; the soars, the raking of dreams; the wading; I think about the depth of my cache; its bounty and I think about an article I read about ravens and theory of mind; how they are always looking; always burying; always thinking of the other raven’s motives: I’m done thinking like that. I remember what I’ve hid and why and where. I can uncover it in a sweep of wonder, stretching it out, like a sun, in the sky, accordioned
Leave a Reply