70

I didn’t tell you, I wanted to, other side of the text message slipped between falling and falling asleep. Slow hands and not going slow enough. The ocean grumbles and so I paused. I know, when the water pulls itself back it makes even the smallest stones tense up—they say something among the green, among the overcast upturned afternoon. Go small, go there—suspension of susurration in what was our method, our asking. The question was posed, and so there was some expectation of answering, or at least, of imagining it. I had no answer, nor question to place behind it. And then what. What stirring at the edges, what ripples in the cloud or the sense that a cursor keeps an evening at bay. What about it… Years ago, when I’d trail off and say something to the effect of, “I don’t know what I’m talking about,” you’d say, each time, “You do.” I still hear that echo. We still love each other, one wave chasing after another, disappearing in the undertow. There’s a way that everything works out: same lesson, same sea. Relation is nothing but an instance, being in someone else’s timing. Here, the waves, here, the sounding. Tell me the sound of your breathing, no—stay there, wait—here. Our small clearing, bedsheets and half past ten. There’s a succulent out there, chopped to bits and left to dry on the lawn. I didn’t tell you, half of it is still growing, standing still. I didn’t tell you, these are questions of presence, which is to say, these are questions of love.