I
Down your wine
Down your wine
Why do you not drink it?
I have been sipping mine, and swirling it in large concentric circles with the anchor of my wrist.
The table is drowning in a sheet of our ignorance. It is white, of course, and still. Very still. So, not water, I think.
I turn my neck to look at you, and then back out the window, at the lightning.
I smell the cold, moist air as it approaches my legs, and spreads itself over the sheet on the table.
We sing sometimes, but are interrupted -or rather accompanied- by our household charms. Voices cling to the leathery seat of the couch and crawl up against your skin. They cradle you to sleep.
You have always known these voices. They have held you, and kissed you, and ran the fingers extending from their palms through your hair. They comfort you, more than I do. Perhaps that is why you haven't touched your drink.
Tears fall to your arms often, I have seen them; but I don't do anything about it. How could I? They are what bring the voices to you. And I couldn't take the voices away.
II
I have finished your wine for you, again. You are sleeping. I look out the window and the lightning is still there. Watching me, watching you, watching us, the sheet, and the damp air.
It is 2 a.m. The roads are silent, other than a group of very loud teenagers. But I don't mind them. They are always there. Casting their shadows on the metal of parked cars and the shimmering globes of street lights.
III
Has it really been so long, since we have spoken? Do you remember the words? There weren't many, I think, just enough to fill-up one voice. It comes to you now, and I watch it; hoping you remember something, so that you can teach me those words again.
I have a persistent feeling of having lost something every time I sit here. Not something important, just useful. Like keys, or a torch, or that string of words you'd left on the kitchen counter that day.
Am I too tired already? No, how could I be? We have just begun.
IV
I am watching the lightning again, and you are staring at your glass; awake, this time. I turn to face you, and you do the same.
Teach me our alphabet again, will you?