There is a soft rain falling.
Saturday morning we were as tangled as a gordian knot, no way to extricate a hand or a leg without changing reality. Who knows where this piece of skin begins and that one ends? We are too comfortably warm to care.
A train is howling sorrow into the weather, as if the water is bringing it pain.
The flower has been put into a dairy bottle half filled with water. It’s on the kitchen counter, where we can’t see it, because we’re trapped in the bedroom with the door closed. This feels like the memory of an anniversary. We make two spoons, melted out of shape, conversation crawling famously between us, draining ourselves of impurities, setting ourselves up for a fall. He makes me laugh.
It’s earlier than I’m used to, but part of this is allowing ourselves to get to work on time.
Two in the afternoon and we finally go for breakfast. Aiden is there with his friend Graham. The woman behind the counter knows me. I make another mental note to bring her flowers as we slide into the window seat. I forget, but Sara is downtown, waiting for us in the basement of Dressew. We have to go. On the bus, a girl smiles at us in approval, half a couple perceiving another pair. I feel under siege by only pretty things.
The bits of food I have squirreled in my room are running out. I may have to find myself breakfast.
Sara is pretty, fresh and welcome. We poke heads into goth stores, a second hand shop, the studio. We’re on a quest for things to wear at SinCity. He and I are failing, but she’s doing okay. We take gorget from the studio and take the bus to my house. I collect my black things, a fishnet shirt that ties at the sleeve, a bra thick enough to dance in, and we wave goodbye to Sarah at Broadway. There is a tree full of birdhouses, stuffed branches with a little town. Kinsgway we decide, to get back to the boat, after Rowan’s. Our fingers lace together as we walk and I’m not sure when I notice.
I’m considering going to Uprising Bakery, but I’m too nested to feel any urgency.
The boat is beautiful, inspiring. I have never felt a pull to sail across an ocean before, but the impulse was dizzying once I’d stepped inside the hull. Panama, it tugged at me, photographs of industrial locks filling with water, the idea of being entirely surrounded by nothing but water. The sway of seasons pushing us across to a place with a different language, a different set of gestures and streets. A city sky lit by different stars at night, a ship to rest against a dock made of stone. Italy, the masks of Venice. The curve of the hull drew me in and drew me through, led me scouring the constellation of books around the bed tucked away in the prow. The sort of place part of me calls home, more so than where I live.
I wonder if there’s a letter downstairs. When does the mail come? My alarm will ring too soon again.