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When the Mosquitoes Die
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When the Mosquitoes Die |
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phoenix95gsx New Member
since 2002-06-04
Posts 6 |
*note: an old piece that's been rewritten time and time again (it started as a short poem if that says anything), but I'm always open to new ideas. this has been published in several places, most recently in an upcoming issue of www.romantasymagazine.com. thanks. It's a Tuesday night, but it is summer and we're young, so nothing matters. The stripped wood porch swing my father made two years ago (mom remarked under her breath once how he got fancier when making Grandma's) glides through the dark air of this warm July. The fourth is two weeks gone, school draws closer and closer, and still we can't admit what we are. I have asked, but I never answer, either. Only lonely, sliver-shafts of light, seeping fingers reaching from between the three-fourths closed pieces of the blinds which hang like marionettes on the other side of the sliding glass door, give a view of her face. There is so much unseen. I don't need to imagine the rest because I've stolen it. Long ago, I stole it, so quietly, to plaster across the billboard of my heart. One of those sliver-shafts lay across her forehead, just above the bridge of her nose and right between her eyes. In the limelight of that lonely shaft sits a mosquito. It is poised, ready to inject its point into her skin and withdraw its night's meal. A silence, one which can only be generated by friend/lovers, has taken residence between us but upon sighting the mosquito, my laughter threatens to break it. There she is: my wonderful, elusive image of beauty with my heart clasped so casually in her teeth, two seconds from becoming the victim this time. Her promising childlike eyes of blue jeans and rain hold my calm orbs of brown and green while my heart hides behind my Adam's apple, a quiet little prisoner, holding hands with the impending laughter, saving the mood. I yearn for... I should swat the mosquito before it bites her! But I can envision my clumsy hands hurting her in some absurd way. I must be gentle. The air parts before my slow movement, allowing my fingertips passage to the mosquito on her face. Here eyes shift, but only for half a moment, to the hand creeping toward her face. She doesn't know my intent, but she trusts me and makes no effort to stop me. I yearn to touch her face, cup her cheek, trail my fingertips acro... but I should swat the mosquito. When contact is made, her lids slip closed loosely. Under other circumstances, I would have ventured to say it was a gesture of unspoken enjoyment. Such smoothness I have never known, the skin gracing her forehead, so lightly masked with a thin layer of fine powdery foundation adding to the sleek feel of ecstasy. My fingers pass down from the top of her forehead, down, down, down, until my index and middle fingers capture the intruder upon her beauty. The mosquito. But, I don't stop there. Still I continue down, down, down the bridge of her nose, and once there, my hand lingers a moment... did she notice? Will my love be exposed? Removing my hand, I present the dead, mashed mosquito to her, and her eyes reopen. She smiles the smile she saves for me and I am lost to everything else but her. The wind which caresses her silken hair contains a hint of dying leaves and extinguished fires, the scents of autumn. With each passing day, summer draws nearer to its end. When it vanishes it will take with it some of my best friends, the mosquitoes. What shall I use as an excuse to touch her when summer dwindles down to nothing, the cold winds come, and all the mosquitoes die? love should be treated as a potter treats clay : fashioned to a likeable design, made permanent, then cherished for its beauty and frailty. |
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