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sing lonely, night bird
like the Bard said, her eyes were nothing like the sun.
she wasn’t a goddess who had fallen out of favor on
Olympus & was cast down here to the big Blue. she
wasn’t even an angel without wings, not as far as I
could tell.
she was a woman. but to say ‘just a woman’ would be
foolish; there is no woman who is just a woman.
I didn’t know what her racket was. she might have been married,
or some big shot’s mistress. she might have been something that
I had no right to call her. the dames that take my arm usually are.
so this very ordinary lady, who wasn’t ordinary at all, had a drink
with me & sat close as we talked about mundane things. there
was a motel on the beach that was made for indiscreet drifters
like us. I suggested it, & she agreed…
moonbeams walked delicately across the water, like the little
feet of some misbegotten redeemer, as we watched from the
window. a night bird sang its farewell & soared homeward
toward the sky; then it was quiet.
this entire improbable fairytale didn’t seem justified for two
wayward strangers, but we stole it anyway. I kissed her then, a
sustained, magnificent kiss that was in no hurry to become part
of the history of romance.
after that, my eyes spoke before I could shut them up. ‘you look
at me like someone who’s about to fall in love,’ she said. I was
guilty as charged, but I figured I wouldn’t serve time. her
response, the way she said it, paved a trail of broken hearts.
as the evening furthered its opera of uncertainty, we made love,
for the first & only time. even as our bodies rubbed together in
the unpardoned inferno of our emotions, we knew that this
corona of sexual reckoning, this folly of the gods, would never
occur again in the bitter destiny of this stone planet.
somehow, that made it more beautiful…
(Artist: Damien Hunin)
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