Maybe she had brown eyes.
Most do: brunette hair, brown eyes. But it’s hard to say, really. Memory is autumnal; it changes like hair, eyes. Like noses and mouths, like the way they snap their chewing gum and bite their lower lips. The way they fidget when touched. They are ephemeral like leaves.
I always come when the lights are out. I call for them, I ask them to. When I am there I always ask if I can tell them I love you. Each she is the same; they always say yes. I fall asleep cradled in their electric warmth, their secret down. When I go or she goes or they go, they take with them an irretrievable part of me. I don’t know what to say. When they are gone, there is lightness. There is no high or low; just quantity. It is not scalar: just settled light.
When I was young, I used to dig tunnels and fill them with water to turn them into canals. I dug trenches and pools. Ants never swum in them, they chose instead to drown. I collected details like I do now: white, stem, light, leaves, narrow or crooked faces. A thorn inserted itself in my palm once; I carry it with me still.
Once upon a time, I found a little bird on the side of the road. Its wingspan was stretched against the dirt. Its down was the color of dirt. Its eyes stared out from the side of its head. Words like frailty failed because it was dead; it was heartless. I could see the red trail where it left. If it were alive, it would have come when called and carried stems and berries in its beak. Instead, its head came off when I kicked its body aside. It rolled into a pile of swept-up leaves. Things could have been so different, I know, but I don’t know what to say. There is a spectrum of things I don’t have the right words for. But all those winged creatures fleeing south for the winter. They all look the same in mid-air.
