pluck nine shiny yellow lemons from the pile, put them in your basket, find the strawberries, try to decide through the clear plastic clamshell boxes which ones contain the best and most delicious strawberries, put two of them in your basket too, and one pink grapefruit, then purchase them and leave the store. peel what needs peeling, tear them apart, lick the tart juices running down to your elbows, smile, laugh, (try to find someone pretty to help), put them in a medium sized pot, then rummage through a kitchen drawer until you find a neglected potato masher, one rarely used no matter how delicious mashed potatoes are because there is just never find time in a busy life to make them, and use it to squish the pulpy sour lemons and the pink grapefruit that squirted while it was being skinned until they are mostly juice. while doing this, the pretty helper should have washed the strawberries in bracing cold water, clear and fresh and cool, and begun to pry the stems out with a fingernail, delicate and certain. they should then open the berries as if they were lips, something sweet to kiss, and toss the pieces in with the wet and acidic mess in the pot, brightening it with berry blood the colour of love and good music. when the first box of plump and perfect strawberries is gone, pressed into the rest of the liquid, take the pot, thanking the pretty assistant, fill it with beautiful water, enough to cover the mixture three times over, and put it on the stove to boil like a mysterious teenage dream of summer. when the mixture has begun to boil, possibly stir in with a wooden spoon, cracked perhaps from being left in the sink too long last month, a cup of the darkest demera sugar, as unprocessed as sugar can be, flavourful as honey. after thirty minutes of bubbling, making sure nothing sticks to the bottom, take the pot from the stove and place it inside the fridge, as arctic and pale as fake fox fur. the frost will lick it clean. when it is cold, it is ready to drink. enjoy.
Day: May 18, 2008
run away to spain
California lifts the ban on gay marriage, becoming the second state to do so.
From the tongue of bees, I step into the warm night, instantly reminded of living somewhere else, a towel around my waist, soaked to the belly, thinking of humidity, how it used to be impossible to see the sky in summer. (At the store, the clerk said it made him happy to see young people in love, “I miss my wife.”) The water on my skin evaporates as I count footprints to the porch, wondering at the heat, and listen to the siren that comes up from the water. Three years I’ve lived here, almost four, and all I know is that it’s from the docks.
David is still in the shower, rinsing bubbles from his hair, I can almost fancy he is quietly singing, though he is not. I stand a moment on the porch, listening to the places I used to live that are suddenly humming under my skin like oxygen, gathering momentum, feeding on the thick texture of the air. I want to have him there, where I once was, in the dark, watching lightning blow in from a roof eight years ago, hair whipping up to blind the clouds that looked as gray as stone, as solid as paint, hands out-stretched, as if with my hands I could catch every drop of rain. I want myself there, but now, like a match-stick struck, flaming into travel faster than thought, as if we could fly on the fire of our belief.
Maybe this will be alright, perhaps I have had my fill of mad genius for now, this could still all work out. Two writers together, mild and bright, making a joyful life, walking, hands held, alright with ourselves, our places, our names. I love him. Already I think in we not I, in us more than me, as if the habits of relationship were merely waiting for me to assume them again like a ring I had merely misplaced, not slowly destroyed or completely forgotten how to wear.
This morning when I woke folded against him, my head on his chest, not yet sleepily reaching for the alarm, I smiled – there was a dried flower petal pressed, like a good luck charm, perfectly in the hollow of his throat.