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.
