Spring Doesn’t Need Me
What is the story that an education tells? It says there’s a path that leads to a door, and what comes next is hazy. To educate an animal means making the beast obey — not make it wise. Once I would fall to my knees on unfamiliar gravel to commune with a force stronger than my own. That was when I met you.
Now the candles are lit in my living room. You’re at rehearsal. White tapers release a blackcurrant sharpness. A Scarlatti sonata plays; some satsumas gleam beneath furled leaves. I have looked over magazines and stepped into shops; I have seen how it is done. But rarely am I invited round — and I struggle to gauge how close I’ve come to ‘making a home’.
One night as we lay in lustrous light, you recited: ‘And who in the orders of angels would hear me if I cried?’ Instead of school I had you. You speak of your teachers with a lazy warmth that takes each one entirely for granted. They are like mountains or weather; like wealth. You flash out a little Latin when we’re on holiday, your mind ribboned gaudy. And my head all disordered rocks, sharp or smooth.
I write this in the morning’s rich blue, against which winter candles read gold. I did not mind you loving me for being a type; I did the same. We met in a library, courted in a bookshop, married in a —
How many stones does one need to feel safe? I have only just dried my eyes. I move to the worktop, lift a fruit and drive my thumb into the pebbled skin, releasing a flare of juice. Now the satsuma is ugly. But the room is still exquisite. I raise my eyes and feel a needling pleasure as my chin keeps lifting. The airy height is my triumph. Yet in bed sometimes, I imagine your dormitory, and I too want bodies pressed close on damp mats.
I hear your step on the stair. Quick as a quarter note, the satsuma is in my palm. Your key rattles as I pour the liquid into a tumbler. You lower your head for a kiss, down the juice. Inhale.
‘I love coming home.’
Your scent of cedar. Winter sunlight wavers in the windowpanes, not patterning the parquet.
Later, I hear your baritone in the shower. I think of your voice all the time, of how — like a dizzy bird, all plummet and soar — it trusts each dive will be cushioned by an orchestra’s mellow swell.
Some nights when you’re touring, I steal into your library and remove a stone. It is one in an artful array heaped artlessly on the shelf. I fall asleep — I only fall asleep — by holding that stone, feeling its heat.
First published in The Mays Anthology 30, 2022
What is the story that an education tells? It says there’s a path that leads to a door, and what comes next is hazy. To educate an animal means making the beast obey — not make it wise. Once I would fall to my knees on unfamiliar gravel to commune with a force stronger than my own. That was when I met you.
Now the candles are lit in my living room. You’re at rehearsal. White tapers release a blackcurrant sharpness. A Scarlatti sonata plays; some satsumas gleam beneath furled leaves. I have looked over magazines and stepped into shops; I have seen how it is done. But rarely am I invited round — and I struggle to gauge how close I’ve come to ‘making a home’.
One night as we lay in lustrous light, you recited: ‘And who in the orders of angels would hear me if I cried?’ Instead of school I had you. You speak of your teachers with a lazy warmth that takes each one entirely for granted. They are like mountains or weather; like wealth. You flash out a little Latin when we’re on holiday, your mind ribboned gaudy. And my head all disordered rocks, sharp or smooth.
I write this in the morning’s rich blue, against which winter candles read gold. I did not mind you loving me for being a type; I did the same. We met in a library, courted in a bookshop, married in a —
How many stones does one need to feel safe? I have only just dried my eyes. I move to the worktop, lift a fruit and drive my thumb into the pebbled skin, releasing a flare of juice. Now the satsuma is ugly. But the room is still exquisite. I raise my eyes and feel a needling pleasure as my chin keeps lifting. The airy height is my triumph. Yet in bed sometimes, I imagine your dormitory, and I too want bodies pressed close on damp mats.
I hear your step on the stair. Quick as a quarter note, the satsuma is in my palm. Your key rattles as I pour the liquid into a tumbler. You lower your head for a kiss, down the juice. Inhale.
‘I love coming home.’
Your scent of cedar. Winter sunlight wavers in the windowpanes, not patterning the parquet.
Later, I hear your baritone in the shower. I think of your voice all the time, of how — like a dizzy bird, all plummet and soar — it trusts each dive will be cushioned by an orchestra’s mellow swell.
Some nights when you’re touring, I steal into your library and remove a stone. It is one in an artful array heaped artlessly on the shelf. I fall asleep — I only fall asleep — by holding that stone, feeling its heat.
First published in The Mays Anthology 30, 2022