More Than Words

by Rebecca Gaffron

We connected
more than words
reveal
loved, like an earthquake
sudden and shocking
rattling the little bits of nice
scattered on my windowsills,
rocking my entire structure.
I lived lifetimes
in moments of unknowing,
anticipating how landscapes
might shift,
settle
into something new,
before it was over
and he was gone
leaving nothing as proof,
just a few books
shaken off shelves,
but no real hint or clue
to affirm the depth of our affection.
Unless you count
cracks
in my concrete,
tiny lines spider-webbing
in elaborate patterns,
whispering his name.
And sometimes a tear
squeezes through my stone
like a weeping saint,
shimmering evidence that we
once wrapped in each other,
miraculous
like an earthquake with nothing broken
or love more than words.

Refraction

by Rebecca Gaffron

I look in the mirror of your eyes and see myself, as I see myself, and wonder what you see. You, who called me beautiful while your calloused thumb rubbed traces of Halloween-costume-freckles from my smooth cheek. You gazed at me under a streetlight all but over-powered by the orange glow of a harvest moon. And it was clear you loved in that moment before your lips met mine. For an instant I wondered how and then the feel of you made me forget to question.

Now all I can think of is the reflection of your smile distorted by glistening water. A line whips and circles in the air.  A lure, so light—freshly  tied and real. The cast is perfect. I am mesmerized by infinitely swaying loops outlined against sky, like some complicated incantation, working and weaving the designs of the universe into our own desires. Willing this fish to strike.

And I can’t tell if I’m the fish or the fisherman. Not sure who is catching who.  Not that it matters. The hook is set and the work begins. We play each other. Reel in the slack and come up close, close enough to look in the mirror of the other’s eyes, where we see ourselves as we see ourselves and wonder what the other sees.

I could be a fish in your grasp. Caught. A gift you’d gaze heavenward and give thanks for. Or you, slick in my hands . A gift I’d tremble with gratitude for. But the run isn’t finished yet. So speckled, iridescent skin slips through hesitant fingers and the line pays out again.

I ache to trust you the way I have never trusted. I ache for you to kill me fast and set my soul free. I want to feel you split me open. Offer my depths to the river and watch as spring-cold currents wash away this mistrust. This doubt. This fear of surrender. I would do the same for you. Rub you down with juniper and salt, protecting more than flesh. Preserving those bits you thought you’d lost.

We could accept the gift of a magic fish. We could look into its eyes and see ourselves as we see ourselves, but also possibilities—a lifetime of harvest moons together and the lingering sound of your guitar, or my words, or the laughter of our children.

But then your lips meet mine and I wonder if this is refraction or reality, before the risk of losing you makes me forget to question.

Of Tangles and Winter Light

by Rebecca Gaffron

Since you changed your mind, my hair’s grown long. It falls like tangled, curling ivy. When I pull the wild spirals straight they almost reach the small of my back, like fingers stretching toward the tree you once caressed with a familiarity that belied our experience. And you said we would have years together, that you would spend hours learning every contour of that pattern inked on my pale skin. Those words seemed to come from nowhere, much like our love, as I bent down to put something away in that kitchen that wasn’t a kitchen, while your fingers traced my roots.

It’s difficult to stand there now, as winter light slants through the widows like it did when we lingered together. The weak sun reveals your ghost. Its haunting aches in me sometimes, my own winter garden, filled with emptiness so complete and yet so temporary. I have faith that you are with me. I feel you. I hear your laugher. I see your face, all but hidden by my mass of hair, your hands caught in the tangles, as I lean over to brush your sweet lips with mine. These moments are real. They exist in me, because they still exist in you.

Since you changed your mind your hair’s grown long. It hangs limp around your weathered face. There’s more salt than pepper now, as I pass you on the street and realize it’s not you. Or not the you I know. The one who loves me. The one who explained that he could be content without me. That life would be okay, perhaps good, even in my absence. But only because we loved. And would love. Forever. The other you looks at me with deadened eyes and sees nothing special. He’s lost. And comfortable that way.

Of Despair and Lotus Flowers

by Rebecca Gaffron

We grew, you and I, from different roots. First side by side, then gently touching, until our trunks entangled. We intertwined, slowly grafting to each other. Became a marriage tree. Proud like the very earth, we stood convinced that together was all we could ever be; all the while pounding one another like waves crashing against ageless crags, oblivious to the danger of erosion.

And the year our foundation crumbled felt like Fenrir swallowing the sun. We wept salt-rivers, leaving our fragments awash in mud. Our stars turned black and in despair I said we should be separate and you agreed. So we pruned ruthlessly, trunks and limbs, and following reason, doubted if anything could survive such a drought and darkness as ours. Then separately we turned the remains of our scarred and withered limbs in new directions, hoping to grow again.

Now there is a crimson lotus growing from my skin. I had it inked there just days after you left.

When the blood dried, I found the letters of your name woven into the flower’s curling, jade-green stem. Unintended marks, like some divine message that faith shaken is not the same as faith lost. And without realizing, we have tended each other’s roots, waiting. Knowing without knowing that lotus flowers grow deep in the mud, beyond the sun’s warming beams. Knowing without knowing that one day we would bloom again, bathed in the light of each other.

Winter, Thirty-nine

by Rebecca Gaffron

My secret waits, clasped in the folds of darkness. One, one-hundred. My secret waits. A child playing hide and seek in frosty shadows, hoping I will spot her and tuck small, chilled fingers into my warm, grown hand. Two, one-hundred. Assuage the fear she names, don’t leave me alone.

And a fear she will not speak. Three, one-hundred. Is that my secret?

Winter stars twinkle a melodic answer. I catch their joyous strain—the child is luminous, magical. She is beyond measure. For an instant I perceive this truth.

Golden child steals from the shadows, tangled in a web of crystal breath. I long to see her dance. She beckons and the astral melody grows louder. We are luminous, magical. We are beyond measure.

A three-year-old me reaches across decades for a hand creased and lined by thirty-nine years. She will not dance without me. I lift my fingers and step forward, knowing she remains beyond my reach. But the snow crunching under-foot whispers that I’m getting closer

Of Wilderness and Philosophy

by Rebecca Gaffron

If I wait in the rain and you don’t show, does it mean something? And would the meaning change if the evening weren’t so wet. Or cold. Or green. My wilderness is green. But I have always longed for rugged, stony greys. It’s human nature to covet that which we are not. To crave poison in the form of delightful dissimilarity. And so I’ve been drawn up steep granite slopes. I’ve felt the wind lift my feet from razor backed fells where I believed I’d found myself, even as golden curls whipped my eyes, casting them downward, back to the patchwork of verdant emerald and olive and jade. Back to geographies more akin to my own. Or yours.

If I wait and you don’t show, is it because you’ve chosen to be a lone wolf? That is an anomaly. Wolves are pack animals. But you are not. Not a pack animal. Not a lone-wolf. This is clear, at least to me. You speak of wilderness. Of pines that spire like church steeples into starlit skies. Of rivers rushing, coursing, bursting in abandon before turning still and soft. Of quiet unspoiled by human chaos. You seek these out in small doses. Not allowing yourself to stay over-long. Avoiding too much stillness, afraid it might keep you. Or deliver the message you’ve been seeking. Something about finally allowing the wound to heal. Something about strengths found in vulnerability.

And if I wait by not waiting, will it change things? If I escape the lonely rain and cloudy shadows by settling into the warm glow of some social wilderness, surrounded by cheerful noise, might I find clarity? Or faith. Enough that when the phone vibrates in my pocket, I will know without hearing that it’s you. You, whispering the delicious promise of intentions-kept in my ear before appearing at my side. Then we will examine our philosophies. We will seek hidden meaning in IPAs and old Bluegrass songs. You will decry false rhetoric, calling out for more joy. More romance. More beer. While I argue the metaphysical merits of jokes unfit for mixed company.

If I wait and find you walking me out, away from the safely of the purely theoretical, will your wilderness envelope mine? There, in the wet and cold, where our greens still pulse under oily black darkness, will I convince myself that us is not something I’ve longed for? Will I see my hopes and fears reflected in your eyes? What if the pull is too great? What if we fall and in the descent lose ourselves, like pebbles dropped in a bottomless cave, plunging on and on forever, into nothing?

Of Shooting Stars and Fireflies

by Rebecca Gaffron

I said shooting star, but you said firefly because the stars were invisible — engrossed in a game of hide and seek behind mounds of inky clouds. You laughed and attributed my vision to tequila, while pouring me another.

On the walk home, I saw something glowing golden in the grass. I said shooting star and you smiled and followed me inside, to the comfort of strong lights and company. But the darkness pulled us back. There, a brilliant spark pulsed, a miniscule sun in a distant galaxy. I pointed, named it shooting star. "No," you said, "fireflies. Two. Entwined."

And suddenly we were. You, like some mischarged magnet, both attracted and repulsed, kissed with tender fury, then held me at arm’s length. You asked what I really wanted. And I, aware of your fingers on my back, willed the fabric of my shirt to dissolve. I safely answered,"I don’t know." But what I meant was, we should be utterly entwined and luminous. And we should set the sky alight.

The Reverend

by Rebecca Gaffron

You ache for someone
to drink you in,
like winter weary skin
soaking up sunbeams.
And I am parched.

Love Song

by Rebecca Gaffron

Bottle blue rolls over dirty walls, now primed and waiting for Pictish patterns. You are the only Scot in me. And you are in me, deep in my bones and blood. We are held together by sparkle and spit, by old songs sung by pixie children. Us, couched in resolve and pain, a single hair’s breadth standing between sweet-perfect union and oblivion. But that is as it ever was. Nothing’s changed except the clarity of our vision.

Bottle blue coats my fingers. I smile at this Scot-like brand, relieved to have found it, to know it blazes even when I’m too blind to feel and too hurt to see. You still warm me like Lagavulin. I squeeze my fist shut, longing for your opposite polarization. I thirst for purrs. Or gray-green tears. Whichever you choose to offer. And know that I have fallen in love again.