He holds His head satchelled in one hand
Covering his eyes from the bright morning light on the table His drooping wristwatch leaving its white shadow on his soiled wrist Spoon hangs limply in the other hand beside a Soggy bowl of granola Ripening Between his elbows "I am bad for you." He mumbled into his soggy milk "I dont know why I hurt you Like i did last night. I'm not enough for you."
She sits next to him In her purple cotton robe Frazzled hair around her pale, tired face Crossed legs Morning light dappling her folded hands on the table. The Coffee pot percolating on the counter behind her Beeps three times, calling her away. She gets up He pushes the cereal bowl safely away from his moral stench. He gives up on eating and covers his face with his hands like a hammock and a mask "I never wanted to be a horrible husband. You can leave me if you want to. Really." A pouring sound, Her back to him. A moment later She sets down a ceramic cup of coffee on the table between his elbows and softly brushes his shoulder with her other hand. He sees the coffee, feels her touch like the brushing of a falling bird but can not look up at her for shame grows heavy chains
not wings
After watching the swirl of creamer brighten his black coffee like dawn
He slowly puts his hands around the hot mug.
It gets hotter but he squeezes tighter.
He lets it burn his palms and he squints away hard thoughts
A tear gets tangled at the roots of his dark eyelashes.
He thinks, "And she still makes me coffee."
He looks up with blurry eyes.
She is looking down at her hands
Lonely,
picking at her cuticles,
biting her lip
Holding back tears in the puffy reservoirs under her eyes.
He feels the moment out
and doubts and doesn't know what to do.
So he sips his coffee, swallows, but pauses,
looks into the mug, surprised, and says,
"You make it better than when I make it for me."
"A spoon and a half of creamer . . ."
her voice quivers, "my love."
They look up and see each other in a blurry water world
She forms her next words like giving birth to an anvil:
"And you are still enough for me."
The words bore real truth like the swords forged on anvil steel. But then an embarrassing sob slipped around her tender fist like an undoing puff of the dust she was made of and she covers her face with her slender hands desperately trying to lift her fragility to a tower out of reach of a brutal world.
His steaming ceramic mug clunked onto the Formica table.
She wiped her tears and glanced quickly at him
His gaze was suddenly different.
firm and resolute
On her
He had heard her
and believed her
And suddenly
to him
She is the object of desire of all men
of all time
In his kitchen
And it is solely in his hands,
one more chance,
To protect her
And unlock her long-closed doors
And open her to shine upon all the world again
Like she was created to do
when the world was made.
His eyes blaze like lighthouses home
She pauses and is scared for just a moment
Not scared in fear but in awe
Like he is a king finding forgotten beauty
in her deserted, dirty alley
And she sees distantly in him a man as old as time.
His stormy green eyes burning like stars
over the rocky caves of his nostrils
and his jutting, set jaw,
As he moves towards her
His chair skids slowly backwards over the hardwood floor.
He rises
and her eyes never leave him.
Like sunflowers following the sun
or a prey at the mercy of a her preyor that
has faith in a world
where all things mysteriously work together for good.
Her heart beats bigger than her chest.
Her lips part.
He kneels before her and leans his lips just close enough to brush the goosebumps on her trembling, lonely arm. They moved like a kiss. But he is saying a silent prayer of reverent thanks Because he has seen that Real Grace has just sanctified the ground around them and the air and everything within hearing.
He looks up with a question in his eyes She knows it certainly with no words. Her nod is as small as a cloud above a quaking land. And he lifts her under her thighs and her back But Holds her entirely in his eyes the whole way To their bed And he loves her. He parted her purple curtain and Carefully sweeps her dusty stage Then his hands brush over a fallow landscape a patient and resolute gale traveling from sea to mountains and the barren ground begins to sprout again.
Her arms don't feel the headboard or the book that falls from the nightstand And they wrap around him And she showers kisses on him rapidly with fervor Like a buzz of bees in a garden And she shines like a bright day onto him, And he rests under her like she is also the noonday shade Until the height of the sun The draw of the waves by the moon and then until the end of the day And the dusk it brings a sigh The beauty fades like a sunset and the sky is filled with cool. And as the night falls they lay side by side In the yellow light of the white curtains And they talk again Like quiet children Like twins in the womb speak by their heartbeats Like chickens who quietly coo in their roosts at night And they find holiness there And find God there, though his name is each other's names Transformed by the real incarnation of Grace.
Raw Spoon
