Lingering Moments
How the first morning light filtered through my window that morning was not any more remarkable than any other day. It was in the way I noticed it that made time halt; my head perched upright and attentive, like a single blue pinhead atop my stuffed red tomato.
How the thin, cream-colored gauze curtains fluttered their promises on a spring breeze, making those fine hairs on my air stand up in anticipation of now.
How my eyes welled in awe as I watched the sacred pulsing of new, soft skull through my baby’s wispy summer hair, her plump rose petal cheeks content in every way.
How someday I’d tell her in fall how important it was to have a favorite mug and a favorite bowl that knew all her secrets, and didn’t tell her to be anything other than a woman who enjoyed strong coffee, and bananas on her oatmeal.
How I melted into the soft, french vanilla of winter, floating breezily out the window, transcending air as passersby didn’t bother looking up to see the oddity of a woman aloft on the wind.
How that wind held onto your voice for me, seasonless and too far away, and still close enough that it tickled, a gentle finger on my ear, tingles rippling down my neck to spine, bending where your kisses would trail…
How birds played hopscotch outside in spring again, twitters of my background symphony, but I was higher than the birds. I was made of treetops, fingertips mingling with tiny leaves, sprouting in every place yours had spun me into our hammock, swinging me under that delicious invitation dangling from your lips when I tasted their need of me.
How I was holding a book again, hands laid gently on top. Page 39 earmarked, since I could never be bothered to search in vain for a bookmark, place-keeping an important quote I may never come back to.
How the clear, salmon light of summer danced over my pages in paper doll shadows, stepping lively, right up to where this day began.
How my legs would pick me up to find a misplaced blue pin, and —
How I’d place it back, carefully as tucking a child into the tomato.
Next to all the others that remained secure.
How I’d need more energy an hour from now, but for now, for this now, I needed to see how the feathers of today would fold and unfold, covering, then exposing more than this reverie…
before the next cloud blew in.
