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Brian Sherman's "Meeting"
A Poet's Corner Original Poet!
A Poet's Corner Original Poet!
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My watch looks up at me. Four twenty-five. I'm early. An older woman reading a magazine
occupies the aspen colored counter on the north wall. Drat it all. I sit at a russet varnished table
with matching chairs. Indecipherable patterns cover the surface. I run my fingers over it. The hairs
on the back of my hand stand on end as fear and dread take control; it trembles against my commands.
I want it to stop, and I watch it shake, quake, several seconds until I give up and make a fist.
Stop it. My eyelids falter and the shake spreads through my arms, stomach, shoulders, heart.
Stop. The bill of my hat blocks my vision; I can't see the faces of other people here, nor comprehend their words as they engage in superficial small talk. The intercom plays…something; I don't recognize the tune. Employees wear I-work-at-Starbucks-where-the-beverage-sizes-are-all-uniquely-named-and-come-in-tiny- cardboard-cups-designed-to-hold-the-coffee-in-but-fry-your-hands-anyway polo shirts, shamrock green, and headsets so they can pretend to listen to drive through customers while they wipe counters with economy sized, reusable moist towelettes; their words are cryptic as well. Windows dominate the west wall - all glass and frames. Coffee shop greenhouse. The glare of afternoon sunlight - bypassing the glass as though it weren't there - blazes off the table, chairs, tile, under the bill, into my eyes. I inhale. Exhale. The shakes subside. A red car pulls up outside; it must be her. I don't look up as she enters. I can't bear to watch her walk toward me, to see the grace in her footfall, the coyness and warmth in her smile, the tendril motion of flaxen hair as it hangs free of scrunchies or barrettes or other tools of hair bondage, her left hand, raised, with a quarter-twist inward - what a peculiar way to wave - and mirrored aquamarines turned on me, sending back at me any non-verbal message I wish to convey marked "return to sender." Her figure catches the corner of my eye, a chair scrapes tile, and she sits. I look up. Conversation: some of it inane, most of it not. I listen when I should speak. I speak when what I'm saying is what I've already said. I give her a gift when I should really give her a turn at the lash: verbal torment to match my inner turmoil. I give her release from debt when it would have been better to call such things in. One thing remains. Your last gift is a little more tangible, but before I can give it to you, you have to close your eyes. I have to close my eyes? Yes. Oh god… She leans her head forward, her right hand shielding her face, protection from harm when no harm is possible. I grasp it. Her skin is smooth, youthful, frail. Our fingers twist together, form a clasp of friendship, her fingers - strong but delicate - holding my hand as fear asserts itself again. I place my other hand around her shoulders, and our lips connect. I see, just before, lipstick, glossy yet flesh toned, aluminum gray of eye shadow, sprinkled with specks of pixie dust just like the picture of Barbie on the plastic bag that holds a snow white Winnie the Pooh - with it's fluffy fuzzy fake fur and forever smile that brings back dreams of sunny summer days and rabbits and tiggers and honey and bumble bees - and the perfume on her neck that tickles my sinuses, draws me in, closer, to give her the one thing I've never given her. I taste wax and warmth and the soft fragility of lost love, love I give freely to her in exchange for a taste of her warmth, her heart, that I will taste again, over and over, in days and weeks to come, when my eyes close as I face the sunset that peeks from under cloud cover in January cold; I give her, in one fleeting moment, every smile, every tear, every hug, caress, knowing look, or whispered affirmation I've ever given her, or ever could have given her, if only she would have let me. What I've just given you is a piece of my heart that will always belong exclusively to you. And, for the rest of my life, every woman I meet, I will always compare to you, because I see you as my ideal. She sighs. |
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