Give and Take

Give and Take

Mark Coleman

  It’s the first rain of June, and I feel like I’m running away. The train behind the elms, the most desirable and inviting means of conveyance and escape. Slouching there, down the rungs from a suite whose extravagance is toasted with gilded glass. Chewing the remaining flesh from a cool cherry pit. Hair dipping down to touch my brow. You can cross your eyes up at it all you like, but all you’ll see is rustling leaves working up the courage to make the leap.

  Loose matches in my pocket ruminating flame. Trouts coming up to watch my crossing. The flashing of fins and eyes in a confused mass of knowing. A pencil stub behind my ear. Picking a few winning lotto numbers. Losing the rest to anniversaries. That magic drizzle that children dream about when no one’s looking. The sky dazzled and dazzling. A sniffle, then a long weep into the dirt and mud. Catching twigs, and sailing them halfway across their world. Bobbing along to the strain of the melodious calliope. The accordion ancient in its squint. The estrogen pumped violin awaiting the wisdom drop.

  Rainbows started then aborted. Left unfinished after just a few strokes on an ultra-azure canvas. Prepped with the proper amount of precipitation. Greased up with a broken fuel line. Hatched with imposing lampposts straight up, driven like stakes into the clouds. Stippled with harbinger crows out the sides. Gone off on the rails to start again somewhere with a beach, and a dress code so lax that you could wear your birthday suit to a wedding reception. Frizzy, platinum blonde hair worn au naturel to the altar. Carnations thrown into the hotel pool, and left to bleed out in streams. The moon making floating on a ripple look so easy and effortless.

  Paddling out to the middle of the lake, and launching bottle rockets astern. Setting fire to the reflections of you and me. Years turning ember, and gliding away. Softly trailing over to the misty horizon where they kaleidoscopically merge with the colors of the setting sun. Ashes puddling and powdering your gaiters. Belief thrown out with your dirty socks and knotted fishing lines.

  Up the mountain, through the gullies, and into the too perfect shade. Picnics romantic and innocent when the honeymoon still had a heartbeat. Taking you beneath the willow as gently as a man like I can. My arms enlaced alternately behind your neck and back. Trying to make you as comfortable as possible.
   Adverse to the slightest sign of pain on your face. Fingers in your golden tresses or brushing a spot of earth from your cheek. Deflowered on a bed of pine needles that find their way into the cups of your bra and strings of your hair. Working the more difficult ones out with friction and persistence.

  The tinny sounds of crickets playing to the crescent swimming up there with half his foot gone beneath a deep purple cover. Swatting mosquitos from your bare legs. The taste of which all of nature seems to appreciate and revel in. Your eyes capturing the stars and robbing them of their light years. It’s a measurement of distance, not time. Once, you were so near that I didn’t have to search for you in every movement that failed to compliment my own.