End of the flowers
In bed, with Jaime beside me, when I let my head drift,
there is one image that recurs and berates: the casket not yet lowered, with
gold trim, and the smoothest wood, masked to look like the smoothest wood, no
lines twirling on it; the top, an image uniform throughout. I think on then.
Then, there were flowers on the top, many flowers. Many flowers lay waiting to
be lowered and sitting in patience as they remained still. The casket, I think, and nothing else comes to mind.
Liars
I lie in bed. Jaime is at my side. I tell her three times
as she falters in and out of sleep that I love her. “Je t’aime, Jaime, je
t’aime, je t’aime.” I feel her arm and hand in the darkness that always looks
like it’s sprinkled with salt to me, or something ready to change form right as
my eyes settle. I come upon one of those jagged parts of her hand. It feels
like soft rock from the cuts that are scarring. Je t’aime, Jaime. I could
ponder the rivers of blood that she summons from those veins, but I don’t. I
think and let the pools in my mind slip through the fragile formations of Je t’aime. The words crackle into sand.
Ten days before I saw the casket for the first time, in life
for the only time, the guy frozen inside the huddle of mourners said “Love,
love, love!” so excitedly that tonight it still makes me afraid of my sacrilege.
My yo-yo eyes prance between moist lids and brittle air
in rapid dance and I want to yell, but instead I whisper the refrain “Je
t’aime,” and she whimpers once, twice, and I lie still, until I am better.
Cut—pause
She asks me to stay with her and nuzzles her nose into my
chest. The salt moves a bit as usual, and I find myself wondering what the
grains have displaced this time. I can’t even tell. She starts a sentence “Do
you,—” and stops as usual, so I let my head drift, and it knocks back into the
casket. I can feel it a bit. It’s cold. Jaime feels along my arm and comes to a
spot filled with raised tissue. She continues to lie in her silence. No
movement, no reaction to my cutter’s wrist. “I was drunk,” I say. “I did it
because I was drunk.” She doesn’t respond. My fingers feel so cold and hers so
warm. I can almost feel them burning. My toes are so cold; I think I may have
an iron deficiency. They feel ready to come off, toes, fingers, nose,
ears—ready to go. But they stay, and I think about the casket. I see it
underground, but I don’t see it all, just the inside. It looks very warm. It
looks very nice. Even a dead person needs a sense of luxury, you see. The face
underneath has little pieces of my fingers sprinkled around. That face once
told me, “See man, this is what you need: you need a girlfriend. No problems
anymore. Like that, gone. Boom, fizzle, pop, man.” Jazzy language. I make jazzy fingers with my hand that is free, but
when I look at them they seem transparent and slow.
Numbing
Quicksand hands,
I think, and Jaime asks for water, so I tell her “Je t’aime.” Her head has been
on my arm for some time now and my arm no longer has any feeling in it. The
casket no longer has any feeling in it. Jaime has fallen asleep and I think it’s
been quite some time now. What is this feeling? And I think about saying, loud
enough to hear, you see, “Maybe we should be friends.” But I stumble, and by
the end of the first syllable the casket is back.
