Never-ending day
Fragments of summer under the subarctic sun
Summer arrives late to this northern paradise.
I remind myself that I need not do anything with a beautiful day. I lie on the couch and watch light dance across birch leaves. I’ve laid on other couches and watched other patterns of light before. The salt air like bubbles in my nose.
Have you ever actually been in love? She asks me recently. Somehow, I don’t think so.
Everything changes, she says. All the corny things are true. The colors of the world look different.
I’m sitting on the dock while L casts for salmon. The gulls squawk and dive for discards on the water.
Across the river is a lone figure lit by the sun. Far away but unmistakably nude. The figure stands thigh-deep in the frigid water. Slowly, it lowers to submerge.
*
We swim in the pool and lie in the grass. We drink wine on the patio.
I stayed out later than the sun the other night. There is a sliver of it now, a full month past solstice. An hour or two of darkness in which to hide.
When people speak of love they mean the romantic kind.
The earth burns. Am I fit for it?
*
Fragments can be an organizing principle, D writes in the Zoom chat.1
I ride my bike home from C’s house using no hands. The neighbor’s two-year-old meets a cat for the first time. Laurie catches another vole that I rescue and release outside. The plants grow so fast.
Lying in the sun with people we love. Hugs after midnight. Hellos and farewells and in betweens. How dare I not feel lonely? I’ve never felt less so than now.
*
Let it sit, I tell myself, before hitting send anyway. [Let it sit ◡̈ ], I write on a post-it note, and stick it above my desk. He was right when he said that I’m very bad at being ordinary.
The perennials are half-off at the nursery. The dandelions have all puffed away. The sun begins to set and this time, I believe it. You try to kiss me on the mouth and I say no, not us, not that.