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{unburdened} michael wilmore I strike a match as the hot water flows. Since he thinks dinner by candlelight passé (he says he likes to be able to see what he is eating), on occasion I settle for washing the dishes with one candle on either side of the back of the sink. He has already gone upstairs. It is still warm outside, so the dishwater steam subsides quickly from the window that looks out onto the back yard. The moon is waning from full and has risen high above the crest of the Sandia Mountains. The battered, bright orb spreads silver light across the wooden deck at the back of the house, the sparse grass nearby, and the juniper and thistle which ornament the expanse of dry, dusty earth stretching up into the foothills. My gaze is drawn by a small flock of sparrows as they fly in and out of our rosebush. Between the stalks, I see a patch of darkness caught among the thorns. The birds swoop in to peck. It might as well be a tasty chunk of suet we left out for them, but I realize that it is not. It is a piece of my lover hanging there. As it is an August moon, the deep red petals have long since faded and fallen into the dirt at the edge of the deck where the roses grow. The rosehips are still green, full and felty behind the withered brown stars of their sepals, two or three of which face toward the mass between them, stems craned as though gawking at an automobile accident by the side of a desert road as they pass. Some of the birds put their claws into the rounded mounds of flower remnants, alight for an instant as they snatch away tiny bites. I could call to him. I’m certain he would bound down the stairway swiftly and without danger of tripping. He is ever unlikely to cause himself pain. He could run into the yard, barefoot, clad in only dark blue patterned boxers, flap his arms to scatter the birds. He has more than once regaled me with his infamous “seven stories”: tales of how he (in his not-so-distant past) had been forced to flee from a total of seven respective back doors by the arrival of seven far more significant others, and had not once been caught. I always laugh, as I am supposed to. How could I not, especially as the first time I ever heard the stories was at the party where we first met? I was deep in struggle with four or five others who tugged at him all night long with the teeth of their intellects and their smiles. I outlasted them all. I just had to have him. If he doesn’t care that a part of him is missing, why should I be left to worry? It might be there through carelessness, although it is perhaps most likely something which he simply believes he no longer needs. He must have cast it off the deck, where he stood earlier in the evening, having the smoke he always likes to have after dinner (always alone). He taps his ash into the bushes, and I used to complain, but he insists it is good for the plants. I am not wise in the ways of soil science, so I’ve never known if he is telling the truth. Some nights I wake and imagine I smell smoke. I rise from bed and walk out onto the deck, sniff the air and search the ground beneath the roses for glow of embers. It rains so seldom that I imagine any spark could rage into an inferno, the wood of the deck piled like so much kindling against our house. Of course, if our home does catch fire, he would easily save himself. He is fit to jump from the second floor balcony without breaking a single bone, without horribly spraining an ankle or knee. If I were as lean as I used to be, he might wait under the window and offer to catch me, but those days have long since passed. I’ve moved on to washing the pots and pans, and the feral cat has come stalking its regular route. The birds have to fly in low to take their morsels from the bush, and I fear some sort of tragedy is certain. I feel I should choose a side. I’ve never been a cat person, but that particular cat has adopted our yard as part of its territory and keeps the other strays away. I might have despised her for a bully, only she is thinner and smaller than most of the others. Also, more than once, I have seen her through the window catching mice in our yard, which seems an invaluable service. Last summer, she even behaved toward me in a manner approaching affection, but disappeared for the winter. She was not the same when she returned in the spring. She sometimes still walks within arms’ length, but dashes away or hisses if I reach out to her. The cat inches closer to the bush. The way the swallows flit about, never at rest, I cannot tell if they are any more worried than they were before the cat began to eye them. The house is quiet enough that I can hear slight chirping through the glass of the window, cheerful as ever. I try to relax, try to leave them to their eternal, inescapable tension of survival. The warm water sloshes gently over my hands as I submerge the small sauce pot and rinse it clean. I breathe deeply and feel the rhythm of my heartbeat ease. But then, the floor above me creaks ever so slightly. It creaks again. He must be stepping very lightly. Many times I have asked him to be mindful of tromping about upstairs when I am at home, but he so often pays little heed to my presence below. I close my eyes and try to imagine the nature of his movements through our bedroom. I hear the faint click of the phone hanging on the kitchen wall, which means another line in the house has been disconnected. I look at the phone and wonder that I did not hear his voice, if indeed he has been talking to someone. He is usually so loud. I did not see her move, but the cat has taken a few more steps forward. The birds must have had their heads turned as well, because the cat has moved nearly within range to pounce, and still they seem concerned only with their tasty treat. I can take it no longer. I rap the window with my knuckle. The cat turns toward me, her eyes in the darkness of a moon shadow cast by the rest of her head. I watch the birds take off over the roof of the house, a twirling flight of split-tailed, arcing darts. When I look back to the cat, her face is once more in the light; the fray of her whiskers shines silver. She looks up toward the eaves like she must have merely forgotten to jump. Perhaps she could have followed, if only the moment had been right. She is thirty feet away from me, but I can see the longing in her eyes. She believes she could have leapt that high. She does not look back to accuse me, looks instead to the rosebush. I realize she had not seen the solitary lump impaled therein. She steps forward again, slowly: tentative and no longer stalking. I wonder what sort of odor it might have. I knock on the window again, this time to no effect whatsoever, other than to leave a smear of water that blurs my view. My presence as witness disturbs the cat no more than she is already disturbed by the thing toward which she is drawn. Another step forward, but her front foot cannot find its way satisfactorily through the blades of a patch of grass to touch the ground. She seems to wish for footing clear of any potential entanglement, so she stops there, then settles back into a ragged circle of dust. The last of the dishwater gurgles with a sucking sound down the drain, leaving a residue that I wipe clean. After I rinse and wring out the rag, I dry my hands thoroughly on a dish towel and wipe the water from the window’s pane. I lean over and softly blow the flame from the candles. What is still outside becomes framed by two wisps of waxy smoke and, with even less light inside, appears more clearly in focus. I recognize that piece of him. Of its own accord, my head shakes slightly from side to side: a declaration, a judgment I might do better to withhold. The cat moves to sit in the grass just short of the rosebush. She seems comfortable: content to wait. She looks toward the window, eyes again hooded from the moonlight. Is she waiting for approval? A blessing? I nod to her once, but then turn from the window and walk away. Who am I to help her sort out the instinctive desires and disgusts that appear to collide so casually within her? I check the locks on the doors and turn out the light in the hallway. The light at the top of the stairs is left to shine down too brightly and wait for me too eagerly. I pause for only a moment before coming out of the shadow, grasping the smooth, worn wood of the handrail, and stepping slowly up to the bedroom. |
