What time is it.
Soon we are given back our lost hour and this makes me think that someone will arrive at my door and ring the bottom bell. They will have gold and red weaved fabric purchased for three dollars at summer stoop sale in Brooklyn. Inside, will be my 20’s.
Not currency……………………….years.
Sometimes I feel an urgency to locate someone to root with. To impregnate me with poems that I birth out in painful contractions. Each time my water breaks, I will instruct my mate to leave the liquid alone.
I’ll need to pick out the sounds and search out the rhythm.
We will have tiny jars of spices we’ve dried out from markets. Footprints of travelers in each room of our home. The sky will wear us as though it were a giant envelope and we are letters.
I will sift through my 20’s, then stuff them into my pocket like loose change. No need to peruse much longer than a few minutes. To remember. To recall. Split second reminders of life. That one. That time. That dislocation of breath. That excruciation of movement. The pills. Dark. Water in handfuls or handshakes. Rain. Locked out of car. Break-in. Burnt sienna. Across country. Moonsongs. Malbec. Macaroni and cheese. The musk of that one. Bookshops and the fire that tried to remove 27. And then. And then.
*
On Sundays, I peel away the folds of newspaper and bring out the section of Styles. In it, Modern Love. Here is where I find my salt and inclination toward the romantic. Here is where I also view the ones who are looking to stitch themselves to another. A lover once asked me why I look at the photos of strangers announcing their marriage. I don’t recall my answer, but what I was thinking:
This loneliness is unsympathetic and I am searching for photographs to remind me of what [could] bloom beside me. And I search for something to recognize. And [maybe] I search for me.
*
There is so much music in here. And someone inside this note whistles a tune that wraps itself around my expanding waste. I translate this high-pitched air as an urgency to remain. Or persistence to see what waits.
*
Our someone is still out there. Or maybe….they’ve just arrived. What matters is that with each sleep we gain insight into the dreams of our lymph nodes. I’ve got one beside right breast and it reminds me to wait. And it reminds me to [always] touch the parts of me that fear. And one day, that mate will arrive again. Like a swelling. Like a reminder that even in urgency, there is a need for patience.
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Aimee Herman 