Bring on the Light

He loved her for two years before he saw
her in the fields. Before he saw her in the sun, at Grimes Graves, as
he came up from the neolithic flint mines with the rest of the
tourists. He loved her slow-burn, and he loved her fast-burn. He loved
her heart-burn, hard-burn, cock-burn, back-burn. He loved her at rates,
at speeds, at fahrenheits unheard of, for two full years before he saw
her in the fields, standing among the burdock, her fingers touching the
strings of a mandolin with little more substance than the wind. He
loved her sleepless, loved her helpless, loved her savage, loved her
cruel.

He loved her when he loved me,
loved her when he raged at me, loved her when he pressed me against
broken bedposts with all the smudged bundles of his abdominal muscles,
wearing only his leather gloves, gripping my shoulders with them as he
smeared us over each other. Every night for two years. He loved her
like this until he saw her in the fields, brick orange hair lacing the
sky, beckoning the outstretches tips of trees, flesh as white sun. He
named her Gogatsu, after May.

Could I
pay for the coffee? He hadn't any money. I took my scarf off and opened
my wallet, becoming lost in its empty skin-folds while he continued.
Sensitively, intelligently, reasonably explaining why it must end. Why
I would never see him again. Except here, where we pay for coffee, with
his right hand tangled and trapped in her orange hair, worming and
flexing as it did when, leather-clad, it held my shoulder. Except here,
where Gogatsu sat and never talked to anyone for two years, while he
loved her from seats and seats away, slow-burn, fast-burn. In her black
lapels, looking down, listening, catching no one's eye when she got up
to leave.

I paid for the coffee, and
crammed my scarf into my pocket, and I counted the ticks of my tongue
and said thank you. And I led him to our seats by a gently waving
tether of steam.

The first time
Hawley and I made out, we broke the backs of apples. He ran into the
back of the supermarket where I worked, tipping over crates. You could
hear the puff of bruises swelling in crisp flesh, and as he stumbled he
put his boot down on one. It sank, spurting amber, before shooting out
from underneath him. &;quot;Help me,&;quot; he said, launching
himself onto his knees before me and clapping his gloves together in a
fist of prayer. &;quot;Pretend I'm your husband!&;quot; He was a
shop-lifter, I was a low-life. We were windfalls who just happened to
bump into one another. What could I do but let him throw himself into
my arms, and crack more apples as we slipped and fell among
them?

But he'd loved while he pressed
me, and his love had called him over the burdock, between the rasp of
grasshoppers, past the holes in the ground where the goblins live.
Circled by skylarks, it led him toward Gogatsu, led his hand towards
the lace of her hair, and when she noticed him, she looked down, and
she stopped playing her mandolin. He loved her silence more than he
loved my noise, her distance more than the close crunch of my bones. He
said hi. Sensitively, intelligently, reasonably. And that was the taper
at the beginning of the gunpowder trail.

align="justify">We sat down at the table. Winter gathered in the
corners of the window, and at the fringe of my skirt, like a bevy of
cold manservants. Are you alright, he asked. Are you alright now that
I've stopped pressing you up against broken bedposts with the hot blade
of my hips, with the gag of my arms, with my flexing, worming leather?
Are you alright? And his love - his fast-burn, slow-burn, hard-burn,
hard-cock love - it grabs me by the wrist and wrenches me up, past him
and out, knocking his coffee cup into his lean, aching lap. And I hope
Gogatsu's silence cools it. I hope she carves a pair of dice from the
redwood of her heart, and rolls a nice, clean number for him. Because
some people bruise easily.