w h e n
my
bo dy
wa s
a
g l a ss
t e rr a r iu m
:: vi ::
:: khi nao + jessica ::
:: alexander ::
The showerhead at 6AM lulls
the blue room back to sleep. I rolled
over at 6:15 and watched you wrap a
towel around your head and you
said good morning in your
rough and sultry morning
voice. In the breaks between
the blinds I saw the night
hang the damp & dusty
clouds atop a block of square
shaped lofts.
Back when I feared flying, I’d pretend
airplanes were giant
sleighs, rushing, rushing
over the endless
expanse of arctic snow.
It took longer on the drive to Boulder
for the crisp outline of
mountains to come into
focus. Your voice was soft and
distant and you read Craft in the
Real World aloud until we grew
bored of it.You wore a dark blue
wrap-around dress with bell
shaped sleeves and flower
print. You wore a special skin-toned
bra to cover up the scar bisecting
your chest. At our apartment, I
folded you likethe stem of a flower
onto the bed. Your neck smelled
salty & floral. You rested your left
hand between your shoulder
and right breast & caught your
breath. You did this the first night we
lay together in a bed and my body
turned to you without moving.
My travel time home from Boulder
back to Denver has greatly
diminished, in hardship, now that
you drive to campus and collect
me. Thanks to your tenderness, my
teaching days are no longer as long
nor as oxygen-deprived. Teaching
behind a mask is a little dangerous.
Even my student, Sam, stops
breathing when reading out
loud. I woke early for an interview,
and oval spots of light traveled
up and down my face like a
diurnal flashlight. My face
burst with luminosity like bubble
wrap. Most Fridays, you are busy
with Zoom meetings. Your voice
echoes in our loft-ish abode
like a gramophone. You are
serious and friendly and I fantasize;
I’d like to do something sultry
andscandalousbehindyourlaptopto
make you smile. The thawed
out frozen pork I sauteed in red
sauce and salt had a hemoglobin
aftertaste, and even the cabbage
contained the iron relics of
something murdered. There
was nothing natural about the
palette transaction.
Last night, my body hung like a
glass terrarium; I felt the soil of
your fingers beneath me, &
the water of my orgasm
floating in between each breath.
Everything in me was suspended
— between the elevation of
your tenderness and the
day’s vast longing.
Your office air was cool and
came through the open
window. We applied for jobs in a glass
building two stories up from the world and
ate lunch outside and I was tired and
weary of the college boys — who
barked like guard dogs at the
girls in sunglasses & bikini tops.
When we walked across the green campus
lawn & under the canopy of yellow
leaves, I watched your profile
against the lush trees, & students
crowding the corners of the bright
afternoon, feeding their
hangovers with angus beef &
grease, and I asked what you did for fun
in college and you said you read poetry in
your room. And now in your office you tell
me you’d like to go back to school, in
Switzerland.
Even though I took only one sip of
the Bread and Butter wine
you bought, I woke feeling as if I
had a hangover. We fought
intensely last night with me
saying many fucks. In the middle
of the fight, you climbed out of
bed. I could hear you in the
darkness, putting on a t-shirt and
pants. I could hear the sonic,
crisp audio of you throwing
things randomly and
mindlessly into a bag and I
could hear the teeth of the
zipper grinding each other's
molars as you zipped one
bag up and began another. i
suspected that you were preparing
for a night stay at some random hotel.
My heart quickened and I felt
defeated. I began to prepare
myself, my mind mainly, for a
desolate night, my first night
in Denver, alone without you.
I thought how quickly it
escalated — one moment you
were in my arms and the
next, you were like a young
soldier who had just joined
the military, sitting on the
edge of the bed, waiting to
say his farewell and I was
that pregnant wife with a
three month fetus in my
womb, wondering when you
would return. The argument
appeared surreal as a
squid fight in the rain with
sharp steak knives.
But your face and chest were blue
in the glowing moon and your
tone softened to the tone I love
and know and so I did not want to go.
The dark clouds of our bodies
took a sharp turn. Sunlight
began filtering through and we
fell asleep into a quiet, resignated
embrace.
In the afternoon we walked to
the Corner for shrimp
bowls. We waited and waited for
our food to arrive. In the car ride back
to Denver, I read your notes on
Paradise Lost. Belial, the
lusty fallen angel, preferred
to exist than to not. He said if
they (the fallen angels, including
Satan) irritate God too much, he
might obliterate them. The most
egregious thing they could do
(revenge-wise) was to “disturb”
and “alarm” GOD, but
otherwise, God is God. Belial
suggested that "familiarity with
the horror and darkness
would lessen the pain of Hell.”
You drifted us out of the mountain
sky, with the sunlight behind us, and
I was thinking, Belial is so naive.
Satan’s daughter, Sin, was born out
of his head precocial — meaning full
grown. And, he raped her. And,
when he raped her, she gave
birth to Death, their son. And,
their son, Death, inspired by his
father’s genetic gene pool of rape,
raped his mother, Sin. Back then,
you said, people didn’t know
how to fuck. There were limited
orifices. And, they only knew how to
rape. Mary was a victim of
such. It was a huge inconvenience
for her, you said. And, I laughed as
you pulled us into the front parking lot
of Blueground. Later, you read a
boring flash fiction from a boring flash
fiction book, and I learned you
love to eat muffins and
drink coffee in the parking
lot of expensive
pharmacies while I pack
books & ship them back to
11:11 Press.