I would wonder if my hair was long enough

I kissed you by your eye and you pulled away, puffed air from your mouth like you do when my hair brushes below your nose. You say it felt weird and laugh in a quick way that lets me know this isn't funny, but rather it should not happen again. I settle back against the hard fibers of your grandmother's couch and will not touch you for a while. I become insecure at the slightest hint that my affection is not conjuring the emotions that match the moment. You lean over, kiss me and ask if you are a good kisser. I say you are but will not ask the same question because I am still nervous about your laugh. I am sure that this is a test, an attempt at an opening, a way for you to tell me that my lips against that spot below and behind your ear feel rough and sticky, that I always smell of coffee and occasionally of menthol cigarettes. I would take the hints without telling you about your after-work hugs, the sharpness of the forming perspiration stains; the taste of kissing you after you floss, when I can still feel what the ribbon did between teeth and across tongue. I would let you pull me into bed and tell me not to worry, that you loved me and we were learning how to be good kissers together. I would let you pull my hair and hold my head fast against the pillow, though this means I cannot breath with your shoulder against my face and covering my mouth. I would wonder if my hair was long enough for you to hold onto.

instructions

The formation of a mixed CD, including cover art and music video bonus features.

flash fiction, a narrative, a summer romance. the first song on the soundtrack would be "only" by okay, and listeners would be disappointed by this mediocre title and name. you would film an audience doing the clap sequence, perhaps at a wedding as they watch the bride and groom eat--not the cake, because that would be too much. just eating the potato salad or pulled pork. it would be a small, intimate scene. if you found a 35 mm camera with no zoom and no flash and no special features, maybe similar to the amber-and-gray rectangle with the yellow button that you played with in your grandmother's basement, if you found this it would be perfect for the still shots. in the middle of the tracklist you would plant the hidden/special/bonus track that is found when the cd is loaded into iTunes (because they would pay you for using their program on the hope that this idea is revolutionary), and then played backwards, and then fully understood when listened while flipping quickly through the booklet of aforementioned still photos that would be crammed into the front of the jewel case. because it is so thick, the corners and cover would tear when it was pushed then pulled back under the four plastic semicircles. this effect was planned and enhances the overall nostalgia, making it trendy, marketable. the product will be outsourced and then shipped back to urban outfitters, to be sold next to the coffee table books full of photography about blue jeans and rusty watches.

death parade with ribbon dancers

We did not witness its birth, but this made it easier to imagine the heartbreak the mother felt when her first born (we assumed) didn't move or cry or suckle. We didn't know if the mother had stopped in the gutter, exhausted with labor pains, and cried alone and cold during delivery. Or had she been disgusted by the stillness of the fetus and dragged it to this most undignified place, to lay next to the silt and crumbles of asphalt that stuck in our bike tires? In our mind, the mother had every trait of her own species, along with those of the woman down the street in the trailer with the pink curlers and Virginia Slims and clogs with fur trim and fingernails so long they curled back into her hands. This mother we created crossed the species line in a way we didn't understand.

We knew that she did not literally have the red, curling nails and that her fur would never be filled with pink curlers and that her hairless tail would never curl around a cigarette with ash growing like a second tail.

We also knew that the trailer-dwelling mother didn't have four skinny teeth or whiskers or an especially strong love of cheese. This, however, did not stop our own mothers from calling her mousey. Not a pet name. A complaint. She was dry, brittle, frantic.

Nor did it stop our mothers from accusing her of living with a rat. You can understand our confusion, then, over which traits we shared and which parts of us were connected to this mouse-woman. You can understand the compassion, then, that we felt on seeing the body of the infant mouse curled in the runoff water heading for the storm drain.

We gathered the body in a small box with a firm, forest-green lid that said Roger's in gold letters. The body seemed so big in the box. We had debated the matchbox, the effect it would create. It may even have been more glorious, to strike the side and set the box aflame.

The Roger's box came to rest inside the wooden well that my neighbor had in the back yard, a lawn decoration. There was no bucket and no water and nothing truly well-ish about the shingled roof and tiled sides, other than the familiar shape that we found in our various nursery rhymes. We climbed over the side of the well and dug a hole with our hands, not caring that the earth clung to our fingernails, not caring that we cut a worm in half on the way. The worm did not receive the same funeral procession as the almost-mouse.

It is the procession was the part we knew was most important, but is, for some reason or another, the part that I remember least. We stood in line and were careful not to smile. We did not have flashing lights or cars to put them on as we went along the road, but I have the slightest recollection of ribbon dancers in our hands, feeling that their colors were the most appropriate kind of mourning.

moving in and out and on

There is much comfort to be had in the whiteness of new rentals. The smaller the apartment, the more crisp the walls feel. Even a low ceiling finds forgiveness in this: the whiteness opens in the light, letting in bounce and wrap around me and say, “Yes, this is your home. We’re so glad to see you.” Each towel and napkin holder, each plant growing from a mason jar look at home on the cracked Formica countertop or peeling window sill. You dust, so as to christen every surface and corner with your own piles and layers of dust.

You take a shower and notice the water pressure. This surely is the perfect water pressure. Here, temperature and ability to rinse out thick curls and comfort as the water taps its Morse Code on skin—all sensations are in homeostasis. You acknowledge all of them and think of the pleasure it will be to shower here—in this room with teal tiles and dark wooden doors!—every day. Your eyes have closed and you open them. There are no lights on in the small room, but the walls feel sunny. You are careful not to splash or spritz or spray them with the products lining the shelf by the toilet.

You go into the living room, which is also your study, which is also the bedroom. You sit on the couch, which is also your bed, and would watch TV if you had one. This would seem sad if someone was watching. But you are content. As you think this word, you realize that it is not in the passable, shrugging contentedness of the resigned. This is a full-hearted content. A wholeness that is made up, completely, of yourself.

In a minute, you could ride your bike to your fiancé’s favorite restaurants. This means that in less than five minutes, you could turn that bike around, ride back in the direction of your apartment, pass the apartment, pass the café where you sat with your fiancé twice a week for an entire summer, and land at your favorite bar. You do neither of these things, but remain staring at your bookshelf from your bed.

Meanwhile, as sitting five hours away, your fiancé stares at the bookcase across from her bed. She contemplates riding her bike to the café you once visited four times a week for over a year, but she works there and it would be miserable going alone. She also has no bike. This reminds her that she should call the landlord and have him put a door on the leaning garage. She has made this call before, when the bike pump got stolen. Then when the bike got stolen. And now when these bikes got stolen. She does not call.

Five hours apart, you think of each other.

a papaya

This morning, I was wondering about the origin of the name papaya. Is it somehow tied to salmon? Fish eggs? The sea? The ripe fruit fell in half with little pressure on the knife. The seeds inside were nestled in pink, semi-elastic goo—a nest of fish eggs. Caviar. Capers. When there was a hole dug into each half, and those halves were quartered. The knife slid easily again, sliding along the curve of the fruit and peeling back the thin skin to show the pink flesh. It could have been covered in scales. It could have been packed on ice and put in the display between shrimp and scallops. I was afraid to smell the fruit, afraid that there could be anything familiar, salt-watery, cold-blooded about the

A domestic morning

A domestic morning. Our weekly shopping spree. This week, our produce was supplemented with Afro-Cuban music, belly dancers, Missouri Coalition for the environment and a woman talking about wind power. We enjoyed the little festival with our iced coffee from Kaldi’s. I was torn as I sipped it—they roast their own, sell their own, and make their own baristas into award winners. They served my the drink with great conversation, complimentary coffee grounds for the garden, in compostable corn cups. They give me no reason to hate them. But I wanted my coffee shop in Soulard, and now they are celebrating their newest shop, opening next month in Soulard’s East wing.

I thought of the plot Joe and I had spotted for our shop—a long warehouse, exposed brick and a garden to the West—this morning as I pulled produce from the crisper, readying the ingredients for our vegetable soup:

Courtesy of Soulard: 1 small cluster of broccoli, trimmed to small crowns • 2 medium red potatoes, and 1 medium yellow onion, sautéed together first; 1 large (I mean LARGE) carrot, sliced Lays®-thin
From the pantry: 1 bottle of Full Circle vegetable juice, 1 can Full Circle diced tomatoes, 1 can of green beans, home-canned zucchini from Joe’s grandma Mimi

By the time I was trimming the pineapple and sharing the two feet of counter space with Joe, I had forgotten our imagined coffee shop and began making the cleaning to-do list. I was surprised by the comfort I found in straightening our home. I wanted to do it well and make it comfortable, our own.

The perfection of this was slightly tainted when I flipped Joe’s sheets to flatten the bedding. A corner caught the fan and twisted it’s dangling chain around the light. “It’s okay,” I shout. “I’ve got it. It just sounded bad.”

“Hmm?” he said between oatmeal-and-banana filled teeth. He hadn’t heard.

The whole time, she was dancing

When she bought the tickets, Richard was not the least bit excited. He remembered their meeting, the party like so many parties, where she poured into his arms under the air clogged with electronic noise. She was most alive at these parties, her dark ponytail swinging in waves, creating a circle around her and leaving others to watch. He stood along the wall, waiting for the next pill-popper to overdose or thinking of ways to remove the highlighter from his shirt, shoes and eyebrows in the morning.
He came back to himself. How long had he been remembering, staring back at that scene and becoming bitter? Becky was still staring at him, eyes large and expectant. She was like a child. They would fill with tears and her lip would shrink to disappearing if he showed his disappointment. Ok, he would go. He would sit through another night of bass and synthesizer bouncing in his chest until he forgot which was the music and which was his heartbeat. He would go, but the girls? Yes, he understood that it was summer vacation, but it’s just not good for them—not that crowd.
He listened to her say this was not true. They would know which people were good and which to avoid on the way to the bathroom. They would know what the music felt like in their lungs, know what it is like to have it vibrate under their toenails. They would understand her and know why, sometimes, her eyes were not in the quiet den with them, but carried somewhere else where her thoughts wouldn’t be heard so easily by others.

Of course she had to have a t-shirt. The Crystal Method doesn’t just put out an album like artists today. This was a rare event. She had to document it, to show that she could be a new fan and appreciate the new tracks while her hands clasped tightly to their first CD, fingers dancing around the edges of the case at the thought of having it signed. She didn’t want to wear the t-shirt though. Richard held back his sigh. They didn’t have bags. What was he to do with it?
They entered the venue and followed Becky to a high, round table. Stage left. Straight shot. Not close to the pit of white tops and glow sticks; safe enough. Richard wore the new t-shirt draped around his shoulders like a cape. Or worse, he thought, like a prep-boy. He sat at his stool and waited. The girls sipped colas on stools next to him, unsure what tonight was about. There was something between their parents—some electricity that could spark and arch if the music hit a wrong note. This was not the Little Gaga concert they had requested, and they still didn’t fully understand why they were here.
Becky did not sit. Not through either opening act. Not when Crystal Method entered the stage. Not when the teenagers surrounded them dancing. Her eyes had gone somewhere else, somewhere deep in the middle of the glow sticks, where her hair would carve a circle around her as she danced and spun. But she was restrained. She stood, hands on Richard’s shoulders, and she bounced. She let the beats move her feet and shake her head. Her hair stayed close, resting on her back. The girls had this hair, neatly pulled back into ponytails. Richard thought about the neatness of it all and felt Becky’s dancing through the changing pressure of her hands on him.
It happened when the girls’ heads began to bop. When they stopped looking around to see who was watching. When the music began vibrating under their toenails, and they reached for their cameras, to prove to themselves in the morning that they had felt this way. He looked back at Becky, saw her hair still resting so close to her. As he had earlier that day, he remembered their meeting, the party like so many parties, where she poured into his arms under the air clogged with electronic noise. This time, he remembered not losing his heartbeat in the bass, but realizing that for Becky, they were the same thing. They had moved together in her circle on the floor. He had baptized of the music, blessed enough to be in Becky’s private circle, shrouded in her hair.
He grabbed the girls by the hands and moved from beneath Becky’s touch. As he walked to the stairs, she followed, unsure what she’d done, ready to cry. But when he could have turned to leave, he descended the stairs. He didn’t stop until the security guards halted his girls, on the edge of the glow-stick pit. Becky understood and followed. And with their hands grasping the railing in front of them, the eyes of the family dug deep into the pit of dancers, each carving their own space, dancing until their heartbeat was the music.

Richard and Becky looked at each other, knowing that tonight would be different. Tonight, they would have sex like that first night—not the first time, when the light was on and they moved mechanically toward each other. The moment after the lights dimmed, after they put the empty bottles of beer in the trashcan, while they looked into each other’s eyes and dug in deep, wanting fiercely and pulling close enough to the other to feel their pulse. Tonight, without the music, the rhythm of their pulsing would be the same.