This morning the garden couldn't be more beautiful. The flood has receded. How happy and at peace I am. What a change from the night before. The bed—my god! You'd have thought eight men had beaten me to death with clubs while I slept. I cup a cool camellia with my palm; pluck a grape and place it between my teeth. I can almost believe the headlines, that I was fished out of the muddy water, nibbled by crabs, clothed in weeds. In fact, I have a funny taste in my mouth still: like unremembered dreams. From the window I watched him leave before dawn. He was making his way slowly over the slippery rocks, like a moon-walker, waiting for me to think twice, to change my mind and call him back. What he didn't realize is that he was already part of my past, frozen in time, like an old photograph. He would be framed in that window forever, always leaving, the last to know. On a stone bench I sit in a kind of swoon to read a book on sunflowers and falconry. I feel something cold and wet, lift my skirt, and find a small snail on my thigh. It's shell is almost transparent and it has left a tacky trail unspooling from my genitals. It's then that I remember the grape. I take it from between my teeth and lay it on the bench beside me. It glistens in the light, ripe and purple to bursting. There is simply no hurry anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment