Sunlight Through Shutters

When we woke, it felt like we were waking from some strange, shared dream, stretched out to span six months and eclipsed by waking. Our bodies, sliced open by thin lines of sun, sluicing through the shutters. From our sun-cuts, we bled magnesium light. Our tessellations changed and shifted, kaleidoscopic forms in brown and gold, peach and white. Dark fever dreams dissolved like salt in the morning's purity. Our wholeness. The sound of our hearts like ticking clocks. The beauty of it pained me. Leaving the bed, my bones were heavy magnets pulling back. My stomach, an anchor sinking in a sad salt-water sea.

You drove me to a hilltop and we lay there like effigies, sun stricken, pale bodies burning in the bright, slow-burning flame of the moment.

You drove me to a lake and we jumped in and the cold was such a shock. Like waking from a dream. Like finding yourself suddenly alone. Our limbs yellow-green beneath the surface. Our faces above it, shocked and lost, water streaming down our cheeks. How could we bear such shock. Such loss.

The sun warmed and dried us. And it burnt us, too. Burnt you into me. Burnt you into the back of my eyes like a camera flash. Like sunlight through shutters. Never leave me. Never, ever leave me. 

But after a few minutes the flash will fade, and be gone.