Jack of Hearts
11-04-2011, 01:07 AM
I’m up all night staring at the way her blonde hair tangles- the way her skin looks so worked, used, lived in. These were photos of when she was young. Early thirties. Sitting by the pool and going to barbecues. One of them, she’s wearing a suit-skirt kind of affair. And I think How earthly. She looks like a woman. She looks like you’d find her walking around a theme park, hot and beat from the sun. Waiting her turn outside Space Mountain.
The world is still awake with me as I clean my off my plate in the sink. There are funny thoughts. Stupid things, idle things for me to chew on. Is it dark outside? I look the window and see twilight setting in. If so, at what point would we call it ‘mostly’ dark? The slow draw of warm water on my hands, the rough edge of the sponge… The last thought I have as I reach to turn the sink off: we say the stars rise but this is just from our perspective. It’s just the earth moving under our feet.
It’s too early, but sometimes I can’t restrain myself. Angela doesn’t live here anymore. It shows in the absence of where her things used to be. So much space now. I walk into the living room. I think about this. I think about the sepia and the wood panel and the 1970’s. And I think about space. Next to my armchair there’s an end table. There’s a photo on it. The image is a little wobbly- my hand is shaking just ever so slightly, like when you try to hold fine things and are extremely conscientious about it. You just can’t hold still.
It’s a picture of me and Angela in some park somewhere. Too far away to remember. I took the picture, arm extended, holding the camera outward and pointing it toward the two of us. Wrapped up in each other, were we wrestling or just intensely in love? So much distance. I stare at her earthy, sunsworn arms holding me in, keeping me grounded.
It’s the knock on the door that brings me back. It’s Bert. I let him in.
Bert hasn’t aged well. He’s gotten fat and bald. It seems to be just the way things go for mission control guys. Sit behind the monitors, wear a clip on tie and drink coffee all day. Pespire through your white linen shirt, retire without getting anybody hurt, and then grow fat and bald.
“You look a little more like a scarecrow every day, Jim,” he says to me as he crosses through the living room, toward the kitchen and the sliding glass door.
He comes here three or four nights a week and we sit in my backyard. I can’t remember us ever really talking. We must’ve started off talking- that seems logical- but it’s all so far away now. We're quiet. We've just happened to fall into orbit with each other. We sip beer and sit in the night and sometimes grunt as we’re getting up, waving an empty beer can,“Git you one?” and the answer is always “Yep.”
So we drink a lot and think about space. Maybe Bert couldn’t go but he lived through those of us that could. Mostly the nighttime is for test launching thoughts that have no focus for daylight.
They cost me a lot. Some of the only times I remember Angela getting mad- when I couldn’t or wouldn’t pay attention. When I put space first. Angela; tank top, sun beaten, faded sandals Angela. Looking up at the moon and stars, washing over with dark clouds, I can’t help but wonder aloud… “I’m not ever going back, am I?” and this scares the **** out of Bert.
The world is still awake with me as I clean my off my plate in the sink. There are funny thoughts. Stupid things, idle things for me to chew on. Is it dark outside? I look the window and see twilight setting in. If so, at what point would we call it ‘mostly’ dark? The slow draw of warm water on my hands, the rough edge of the sponge… The last thought I have as I reach to turn the sink off: we say the stars rise but this is just from our perspective. It’s just the earth moving under our feet.
It’s too early, but sometimes I can’t restrain myself. Angela doesn’t live here anymore. It shows in the absence of where her things used to be. So much space now. I walk into the living room. I think about this. I think about the sepia and the wood panel and the 1970’s. And I think about space. Next to my armchair there’s an end table. There’s a photo on it. The image is a little wobbly- my hand is shaking just ever so slightly, like when you try to hold fine things and are extremely conscientious about it. You just can’t hold still.
It’s a picture of me and Angela in some park somewhere. Too far away to remember. I took the picture, arm extended, holding the camera outward and pointing it toward the two of us. Wrapped up in each other, were we wrestling or just intensely in love? So much distance. I stare at her earthy, sunsworn arms holding me in, keeping me grounded.
It’s the knock on the door that brings me back. It’s Bert. I let him in.
Bert hasn’t aged well. He’s gotten fat and bald. It seems to be just the way things go for mission control guys. Sit behind the monitors, wear a clip on tie and drink coffee all day. Pespire through your white linen shirt, retire without getting anybody hurt, and then grow fat and bald.
“You look a little more like a scarecrow every day, Jim,” he says to me as he crosses through the living room, toward the kitchen and the sliding glass door.
He comes here three or four nights a week and we sit in my backyard. I can’t remember us ever really talking. We must’ve started off talking- that seems logical- but it’s all so far away now. We're quiet. We've just happened to fall into orbit with each other. We sip beer and sit in the night and sometimes grunt as we’re getting up, waving an empty beer can,“Git you one?” and the answer is always “Yep.”
So we drink a lot and think about space. Maybe Bert couldn’t go but he lived through those of us that could. Mostly the nighttime is for test launching thoughts that have no focus for daylight.
They cost me a lot. Some of the only times I remember Angela getting mad- when I couldn’t or wouldn’t pay attention. When I put space first. Angela; tank top, sun beaten, faded sandals Angela. Looking up at the moon and stars, washing over with dark clouds, I can’t help but wonder aloud… “I’m not ever going back, am I?” and this scares the **** out of Bert.