Like Living Neither Nor Dead

(A Day or Maybe Even Less)

part of a larger piece

Rain sprinkled.

Thunder settled like a mist over the next horizon. And Lee?

“Gargoyle,” he thought aloud.

The ground gathered its hands together beneath him, ready.

“What if I took your life?” he had asked.
“No. Not even you,” she smiled, shaking her head.
“Do you really love me then?” his heart stuttered.
“Yes.” hers answered. “But not even you.”
“Do you understand?” her lips asked his ear, her arms slipping over his shoulders. One hand nested its finger in his hair.
Sometimes we purr. Lee did.

There were twenty times three stairs. That he knew for sure. He had counted. Every step whispered beneath their feet as they ascended the cast-iron staircase that clung to the back of the building. Zigging twice, zagging once.

“I suppose,” Lee had said, looking as thoughtful as he could manage, “that I would want to be a horse . . . a wild horse.” Though he meant it, it was a reflex answer. He knew she knew.

“Why a horse?” she asked, slipping off her sweater and laying it on the over-tarred rooftop. This he knew she knew also.

“They’re beautiful animals; strong,” he said. He meant her. “And they can see behind them. There’s no sneaking up on a horse.” He meant him. She unfastened her skirt with his eyes and tossed it over her sweater, over the tar, over the stone put in place a century ago and still right where it had been left. She glistened with sunlight reflected off the moon. Her breasts nodded as she stepped toward him. He was firm in his desire.

“Yes.” she guided his pants to their cuffs. Together, they hugged his ankles. In two steps, he broke the embrace. “And I would be a horse too. To love you like a horse can love another.”

Yesss, whispered his shirt over his flesh. Paper against paper makes this sound. Even in books.

Even Nietzsche.