5 things about a pensive summer; a poem

 

Ⅰ. It’s the summer of elderberry cider and feet up on the wall at the gloaming hour. My fingers touch the oily ring of the sink, shrouded in loose long strands of hair, which I’ve cut out on miserable whims; and I stare into the toothpaste-splattered mirror, painted by the electric toothbrush that I stood with half-asleep trying to scrape away the cruel aftertaste of a long night. Last night, in my bed which still holds the form and weight of two, my sheets are downstairs in the laundromat. My flatmate (the poet) recites a poem out of spite for me, something due tomorrow, something in German. The humidity on the scratched herringbone floor only makes the creaks erratic; the only bells that ring are those of church, and I must stop thinking of last night.

Ⅱ. The sun seeps through the pores and joins, in fluid heat, my body’s blood. I must stop thinking of last night or I will slip too, like the sun, into my humid sheets, my soapy sheets downstairs, compressed into the bed, into the folds and the crevices that only feel like him. I lie in a saccharine moment, sweet like yours on my lips. While I’m tortured, it feels like my virginity has been proffered again as it always is. I resume a sapient consciousness and try, like my flatmate, to digest the night poetically.

Ⅲ. The catsitter, an old friend. She waits on her balcony for me; she has my cat for the weekend. The day is winnowy, silent and at peace, the wind brings the lukewarm change of languour, people talk and bike and I am on my bike as well. The cage holds an irascible kitty, and on hug-your-cat-day too, I feel so conflicted. Her face shines as always, in and out. She has Dutch braids, entwined with candid red and orange beads like jujube berries. She waves at me with the hand that holds Neuromancer. We connect well. The cat gives his protests but is otherwise silent for my bike ride. I take him and the litter while she holds the food, her left hand for opening doors and pressing elevator buttons. A very pretty flat, it’s a bachelor.

Ⅳ. Not too long later she calls me and says, “come back, he’s not eating.” and I say FUCK like it does in graffiti on the bathroom stall at work. The blue night riding downtown whispers the effortless passions of yesterday, and him, and I fly down the road in half-conscious elation. The concrete is smooth, the night is smooth and I am at peace. Two older men sit outside her apartment building on the steps in the moonlight talking; I don’t lock my bike. Front or back door, front…or back door. I peer inside the front door to the lobby and see my cat in his kennel with the bags and litterbox, a small upcycled bin, on the orange sofa in the steady light. She is nowhere to be seen, but I can’t get in….she comes to the door. The old men have now started laughing, as I was waiting. The lamps in someone’s apartment flicker, a dog starts barking far away. We say goodnight. The night is smooth and still blue when I ride home.

Ⅴ. There’s a clear difference between warm and blue loneliness. Warm loneliness is at 4 and 5 in the afternoon and blue loneliness comes at 7. The rest of the day is indifferent to loneliness…or lonesomeness, I suppose. Warm loneliness is when I think I can be alone forever. I’m listening to Joao Gilberto in a red brick townhouse on a Sunday afternoon and I can smell the humanity sweating from the world around me. At 5 it is wearing off but warm still and I’m running downstairs to the grocery by the laundromat to get kalamata olives for my Greek salad. I don’t like including cold loneliness, although you could assume I would when I say warm. Cold loneliness exists but it’s rare…hard to find, it’s endurant, lasting and depressive. It’s the last stage of loneliness, at the very end of the evening. If only there’d be a day after Sunday. But either way, the Sun stays orange like a glowing tangerine in June heat down south, and the morning ebbs away the loneliness of last night even when last night wasn’t lonely at all.