Casa del Lago

It was Casablanca. The first movie we ever watched at the lake house. We also, one time, watched the Lake House, and I imagined I was Keanu Reeves writing you letters across time. I even wrote some of them, and left them in obvious places for you to find: in the shower, taped to the hose in the garden, sticking out of a crack in the dock. You found most of them. Some you never did.

Some I left overnight only to find shriveled and torn in the wake of a rainstorm. When it rained, we spent hours watching movies. All movies. Gangster movies, romance movies, classic movies, and every new release we got out hands on. Your favorite was Casablanca. The first time we watched it I admit I stayed focused on you. You mouthed every word; eventually I learned them all too.

You used to call me “Rick my love”, just before you kissed me. And just before you left the last time you leaned in and whispered softly “Though time may pass, we will always have the lake house.” It was cliché, cheesy; I didn’t care.

Not a day goes by I don’t still think about it. Falling asleep on the raft, my hand dipped into the nectar sweet waters, and coming in hours later red as a tomato. Lounging on the bank, watching the lake breathe long rhythmic breaths. Resting my head on your chest as you tried to mimic the flow of the water with your own. Sitting on the dock, legs dangling, reciting Italian love poems as we watched the salmon sun end its long days leap out of the lake and come to rest under deep cerulean waters.

Each morning, still, my heart flutters as I imagine I’m waking up to you, sun flooding the room, and expanse of crystal waters just outside our door. I left a note the last time I was there. I imagine years from now you’ll read it:

Though time may pass, you’ll always have me.

Segue la Luce

Era mezzanotte. Non c’erano luci nelle strade o nelle case. Non c’erano voci che si può sentire e il ambiente era tacito; due anni prima l’ultima albero aveva caduto e gli uccelli erano usciti. Una città aveva rimasto con cittadini che lavoravano durante i giorni e dormivano durante la notte. Non c’erano le cose divertenti e non c’erano i sogni eccetto di un ragazzo fantasioso. L’unica luce stette nel mente di Cristofero.
Lui lavorò durante il giorno come gli altri. E lui dormì durante la notte. Però quando lui anche dormiva, lui sognava. Lui sognava delle cosec he non aveva visto mai: i fiori, il fuoco, l’acqua, il vento e gli uccelli. Lui aveva interesse di rimanere negli sogni; loro erano meravigliosi. Negli sogni Cristofero cantava con i fiori. Loro cantavano le canzoni stranieri degli paesi come Cina, Brasile e Russia. Cristofero pensava che lui ed i fiori avevano cantata tutte le canzoni del mondo. Lui ballava con il fuoco. Era un fuoco gentile che conosceva tutte le danze. Loro ballavano la samba, il flamenco e valzer. Un giorno loro provarono a aprendere la capoeira ma non già possavono farla.
Negli valli Cristofero correva con l’acqua e sentivano l’aria anche correva con loro. Videro tutto il mondo insieme e conoberro tutti. Sulle montagne Cristofero guardava mentre il vento dipingeva con pennelli di foglie e boccioli di fiori. Un giorno il vento fu Van Gogh e un altro giorno fu Rembrandt e un altro giorno fu Michelangelo. Cristofero sedeva nelle alberi e sentiva il ambiente che recitava le poesie. Le rane parlavano di Shakespeare. Gli uccelli parlavano di Auden. La nebbia gialla sussurrava le parole di Eliot. E i suoni delle frutte e foglie cadute erano la voce di Frost.
I cittadini esisterono ma Cristofero visse.

fraises

sugared, tasteful spring buds are fingertips
caressing the back of your throat
her sweet perfume that permeates
your thick presuppositions
of an after dinner delight
the perm you ignored
discarding the wisps of her
feathered cap in seeking
the ripe flesh you've come to expect
how you stroke her skin
with your lustful tongue
wrap your lips around the tip
with one final tease
and bite.

Aprendo? Ou sobstituo?

Me pergunto
O que é que você gosta de fazer?

Mas ainda sei
Eu não gostaria de pensar mais.
Muitas vezes, quando penso,
quando falo, quando faço qualquer coisa
não posso voltar a meu mesmo.
Tem um sotaque. Uma escuridão feia,
como uma sombra sobre minhas opiniões.
Não fujo da escuridão nunca.

Christmas Rape Series

2
Later in the living room his mother sat smugly celebrating her conquest, a full three weeks after she'd outed his uncle for what he really was. While watching a biopic on intolerance or Oprah or whatever blather she was entertained by, his mother channeled Harper Lee with her indignant expression and response to questions asked thousands of miles away and a full day before. He sarcastically agreed with her accepting position and excused himself from the room, wondering whether her conscience had any understanding of hypocrisy or if she'd still be giving him ten dollars to donate to African American scholarships. It made her feel better and he always pocketed the money. Later when he saw Tim on main street he'd hand him the ten and share a joke and maybe a drink. Tim hit the bottle pretty heavily much to the dismay of the boy's mother who treated him as common swine. She tended to glide by him, head in the air, talking of how sad it was that some people never really tried to better themselves. The boy always smiled, winked at Tim, and gestured to the fat diamond ring on his mother's finger and said "I'm glad we're not like that mother".

Christmas Rape Series

1
His existential musings had never once led far beyond the width of a stone path. His curiosity unable to match the power of tradition. He feigned excitement on a clay countenance that reminded him of the faces he made in dough at his grandfather's bakery. Jesus, Mary and Joseph became a loaf. Jane Marie's smile became a keepsake when he dropped it on the floor and hid it from his grandfather. Her lack of teeth was satisfied by sugared confections and later removed due to the exploits of a sweet-toothed lover. Toothless and dry made her uninteresting to the boy who tossed her out the second story window, presumably to be torn and snapped by hungry crows. He smiled imagining a crow sucking in her lips, only to find that filled on her sweet flesh it could no longer fly. When an alley cat strode by that evening, he'd find a stuffed bird like mother made at thanksgiving, legs raised, plucked, savory. Ready to be pillaged and conquered in honor of hypocritical fore fathers whose exploits are forever celebrated in football and tryptophan. Curiosity getting the best of a thus retarded cat is manifested in the thud under his uncle's blue sedan being whisked away on the furious torrent of childhood memories. Mother having used her home court advantage to reminisce on circumstances nobody yet knew of, and a lover that none knew existed outside of the oft flipped through pages of a yearbook belonging to a family of elephants.

spero

devo stare?
il mio cuoro mi dica che
il mondo è morto
se non stai qua
la mia vita è corto.
saresti parlare?
quando il mio voce è
vuoto della passione
e ho paura come
un bambino giovane
che non sa cosa deve fare.