Lakes
It stopped raining on us, we two, and that made it seem sullen
and late. The sun as it came out was sending rocks skipping
clear and gleaming on the rippled water where my own stone
had sunk undecorously.
Under my elbows the grass was wet, and I could feel the damp
soaking through the seat of my pants. and there was also the
cold elegant smell of the moist earth and the quiet of a heavy,
sopping-wet world.
"Gabriel;" you spoke to me. But I watched your
lips so intently as the words tumbled from them over the smooth
crest of the bottom crescent that their sounds became bubbles
and droplets falling to your feet, momentarily exploding the
puddles there.
I found the matted section of the grass where the two long
and vaguely snakish troughs formed in the mass of upstanding
varicose blades. sweeping arm tracks curled the waves in one
direction, lined up in simple ecstasy. And you were talking
talking talking as the sky clouded over and rushed towards
the horizon, sinking us in the pale empty black night.
bio:
My publications include my novel, Bedford, published in 2003
by Six Gallery Press, and fiction and poetry in Segue, Poetic
Inhalation, Zygote in My Coffee, Lilliput Magazine, and Babel
Magazine. I have a BA in Comparative Literature from University
of Southern California. I currently still live in Los Angeles,
but grew up in Indiana, the influence of which, I think, is
prevalent in my writing. www.bedfordnovel.com
