Snowfall
- Your gaze burns me, he said.
As he picked the wool sweater from the floor, the gray one, and shun his body from my eyes. He wore nothing but that sweater; it scratched my cheeks as he kissed me. It smelled of him. From him. His smell was all around us, all in me it was.
It was a long time now, since we had last seen each other. But his eyes fish-hooked me, pulled me in close, to the vulnerable magnetic field that he was. His hands were strong, warm from the summers they had known.
Snow fell that night, snow rested tenderly between our loins. Snow fell in my heated memory. Snow fell on his name.
Later that same night, that same bed, with her.
- Why did you see him?, she asks.
-I had to, he loved me so dearly, I replied. And I loved him too, no I was in him and he was in me.
Her fingers wander the hills and valleys of the duvet.
- He was the only one I could ever see myself with, I said. Beside him, growing tall. Tagged in pictures by others. In this picture: Him and her. The man and the woman.
Snow falls in bed with her, snow falls on her breasts and at the back of her knees it makes puddles. His smell is in the snow. His smell is in my hair. At the back of her knees.
That night I wake up. I watch my face in the midnight-dark mirror, ghostly pale and longing. She sleeps sound. Breast rises and falls. Her hair is tangled from my fingers. Glued with sweat.
I have missed him that is why I wanted to see him. He had that wool sweater even back then, but perhaps it is not the same. Perhaps it’s a new one, one especially bought for me?
His body is covered with hair; he doesn’t need to wear that sweater. He was ashamed when we undressed that first night, of the hair making a Persian rug on his back and chest, lingering its way down.
He was fragile. I mounted him. He was never strong, I was always weak. He sought shelter in me. I held him in arms blue from cold. Felt his strong back against my breasts. He closed his eyes and into me he flew.
I picked him up and I held him, as I would a damaged bird from the shores. He was so brilliant, luminous. In pale light he shined but my gaze burnt him he said. As I would hold him he would tell stories, all of which I kept, hid in my heart. Locked away safely, sealed by my arms strong hold of his body. His breathing intertwined with mine.
The stories of his childhood dreams. The big wardrobe made from oak, the princess next to him pulling out the drawer presenting him with shoes of gold. He was a storyteller; it was what poisoned his blood. Listening was mine, and keeping. I ran my finger down his neck as morning grew outside, struggling its way through the thick mist of crushed hopes on pavements, and the sun lit the spots on my sheets.
He rolled out of my arms when he fell asleep, safely he spread his arms to cover me, and snored. He snored all night. The sounds demolished my thoughts, I couldn’t share this. I couldn’t write this, ever.
She wakes up, her eyes are restless.
- You still want him! She accuses.
- No, I say. I want me. I want who I was then.
I clime into bed with her, her eyes are burning and her fingers hard on my ribs. Snow insists on falling, snow insists on covering my heated memory of his name. Snow melts in my mind, water rises from the well, she shelters me, as one would a bird from the shore. She holds me in her arms. The melted snow rivers from my eyes, trickling down my cheeks onto her collarbones. And beyond them to the sea they float.
I tell stories, I tell that story, of him. How my gaze burnt the fabric of the sweater, how it burnt his hands strong from summer lit fields of barley. How his snoring ate my thoughts and spit them out on the floor. How I spit him out. Carelessly.
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