and now, a little bit of fiction.

falling in love with strangers

There should be four feet -- bumping and sliding around each other like smooth stones in a river bed -- under the blanket of cotton rubbing atop one another warmed by the friction

My mind won’t stay empty and my heart won’t stay full. 

I imagine that I know you and that I would pretend I didn’t like your facial expressions, especially the one that precludes those crumpled wads of bills left on chipped Formica countertops after hours of inhaling burnt diner coffee and then I’m driving through the desert and your skin is between my fingers as I traipse across the scaly sea of Joshua trees as my hands reach lower than Jericho I can decipher the message in your pores like Braille with my pillowed fingerprints and your back is like a novel I’ve read one hundred times before where my heart stops when I digest my favorite lines and when I remember the punctuation of a freckle or the narrative of a scar now I can feel each ridge built into your hands from the hours of wood chopping and guitar playing and your skin has the same clear, crisp, and daunting audacity of my favorite song on vinyl and I want to lay here forever even though nothing could trick me into staying still it’s funny, facing the sky, confirming my worst suspicions to an audience of stars:

I’m better off this way. 

But suddenly, I don’t know you and I imagine that I do-- I can anticipate that you like the smell of fresh guitar strings and that you know how to play the mandolin. You like your eggs not unlike your women -- over easy and properly dressed -- and you prefer Jameson to Johnny Walker but you won’t say no to the latter. You pretend not to be chivalrous but you can't not open a door for any woman and you never drop hints about how you'd like to undress and ravage all those desperate girls and you say you gave it up but you can roll a joint with one hand while your strong hands dance across your worn-out frets and you let a Nat Sherman hang from your cracked lips. The melody of your breathing hangs with a sweet twang like major chords from Arlo or maybe Woodie Guthrie and you don’t speak Spanish but you can sing along to the Gipsy Kings and you laugh when words you shouldn’t understand reach your eager ears and you’d never admit that you cried when you watched Once alone and realized that all ships are built for sinking --

I drank too much and wore a party dress. You looked at me twice and that was all it took for my awkward knees to be sprawling and adjacent like leafless tree branches in the midst of winter but I’d like to know you better, maybe a picnic or an illicit outing or a late-night serenade you whisper to me as I smell milk and honey on your breath You’re the kind of girl I’d want to marry as you kiss me on the forehead and leave me with my dress rolled down and my collar bones and pale skin and breasts exposed and tears roll down my cheeks like molasses or maple syrup or something else slow and sickly sticky sweet just like a riff from Hendrix if only I’d known better.