POINTS OF DEPARTURE

In my room I’m in a garden of white bed sheets. Folds of different colors of white. There are flowers here. But they have colors, pink and yellow and blue and green.  Memories of all the books I have read here. Called up through the smell of a familiar place.

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Balancing on concrete poured curbs. White picket fences. Silent walking to a friend’s house alone; I find myself with a slow dog called Elvis and the calm man who pulls him along.

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There is a phone ringing and I know no one will be answering. It’s late and I can hear the outside but I feel like it would be silly to hang up now. I wait for the machine, listening to the hollow sound. I’d been thinking about you today.

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Jet streams ripple and cross

making a white DNA spiral through the blue.

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I can taste the plum blossoms and smell the bread baking. Petals caught in puddles.

Looking west.

Orange light settled like pulp at the bottom of a glass.

Thinking to myself how thick are clouds?

I am trying to fit it all in my vision.

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You want to come here, but I tell you I aim to disappoint. Who cares if it isn’t true.

I could say anything.

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I am sitting at the bus stop looking at my hands. The heat is heavy and dry, stilling everything. The world is washed in brightness. A light that makes me feel alone. The town glows a harsh yellow and people in fancy cars drive by those us standing at the edge of it all. It seems to them that we are perpetually waiting. Perpetually sitting on sidewalks and on benches. Always waiting for buses or trains that never come.

The backs of my hands have smooth deep cracks running through them. Washed in yellow light I follow the lines that flow over knuckle and around curves. A breeze comes out of the clear blue sky and pulls the hair from my face. Boleros rise up faintly from a man’s headphones, permeating the calm. The motor-interrupted quiet. How would you describe the only sound that comes out of stillness?

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Fleeting idea, I was going to catch the next thought I had told myself. But I shot this one away so quickly. The kitchen table is wooden and soft beneath my forearms. I watch the sun on my fingernails. Torn cuticles and sweaty palms.

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This morning coming to see me, you left before dawn, really just before. So that the sun would be rising as you drove away. New beginnings as there are everyday. Sun caught between buildings and seen through leaves, it’s rising over the hills when you were leaving, feeling freedom. It was warm and you were wearing shorts, your skin already sticking to the leather seat. The radio playing loudly, calm through the static. You lean to roll down the window some, your hair slipping over your shoulder. Pressing on the gas, the road slides away beneath you.

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When you arrive it’s my favorite time of day. The shadows are long and I stand you in the middle of my street so that you can look down it.  The yellow lines that you think border on orange and the off centered sign.  Breathing out the day, you could be anywhere.

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Opera on the radio.

Funny stuff, you say, hands sliding on the steering wheel as it recovers from a turn.

I lean forward to see plum blossoms bud. How are you today?

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You ask me about each of the scars on my face. I tell a story about each one. If there is one. When I don’t remember or don’t want to tell you I laugh and say I scar easily. Now it’s my turn.

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We lie facing each other. I can barely see it, you say as I push back the hair from my forehead so that you can see.

I am my fast-talking eccentric self at the moment. Frustratingly fidgety.

You’re making me nervous and I refuse to let myself go.

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We’re slowing down into peach country. Orange with an underscore of danger.  A slow warm purity in the fat peach on the white license plates of the cars that change lanes in front of us. They are moving in and out of line with us languid and controlled. We continue to drive in silence.

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The plum blossoms are falling and it seems there is still snow on the ground. Pink and white pushing against the edges. You run through the snow. Looking over your shoulder you smile and you know you are caught.

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We find a recliner chair by the side of the road and carry it out to the middle of the field. We sit in it, smoking our splifs and watching for shooting stars. I wanted a good place to show you my soul music.

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The horns start up again, moving time. Their music falling in a slow slipping line. Lifting your arms to the triangle arched ceiling, brown slotted board. You are the only one dancing.

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I’m going to get on my way then, you say. Take a train, spend some time alone outside on my own, you tell me. Float down sidewalks doing normal things, watching a city.

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You walk away from me in white. Down the front steps through the muddy grass. Smooth like the wind. Your hands were at your sides. The papers that you had left up there on the porch caught the breeze and were now spilling into the air. A gust pushing them forward to your back, they cascade down the shoulder of the wind. They surge and spill. White birds in some strange formation.

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Yellow roses reflected in windows, paint peeling back old redwood history. Vines left their mark in dotted lines overlapping and climbing.

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Someday I will write something long for you. My knuckles wont crack and head wont be scratched.