prepositions
by Huckleberry Shelf
you are on a bench carved from a log polished shiny you have your arms around another human being the two of you on the bench make one mass which overlooks a lake surface that when undisturbed can look like seaglass blue opaque it is disturbed ducks dart In Out Over Through you name the prepositional ducks as their prepositions rotate you lose them rename them wonder are they all the same duck like you have become a mass with this other person are they all a mass of duck in a simple monogamous relationship with the lake surface a man across from you throws some bread into the water they really do look like a mass for a moment a roiling mass emerging from serenity becoming serenity again you are in san francisco but you think of chicago in the future how you will hold a different human in your arms look out over a different smaller seaglass blue body of water this one a pond frozen over littered with detritus you will take or have taken or are taking your arm off of the other future person’s shoulders using it to grab a big stick a size or two below log it is your determination to break the ice you throw the wanna-be log it does very little becomes a piece of wood Above a piece of water but you are satisfied because you know when the water thaws your wanna-be log will sink prove to anyone keeping track that your actions have consequences such as back in san francisco your future memory has loosed you from the mass stranded you in your thoughts you love a russian poem that calls love fear you think about the humans who you will be have been so close to you’re beyond the prepositional you’re not In love with them you ARE love with them you think about them feel very afraid in a rushing kind of way the same fear you feel when you first step into the ocean your foot gets colder than it ever could be but you are not by an ocean or a pond you are by a lake you see very clearly the human next to you on the insides of your eyelids you know that any time that human isn’t in your arms you have to reckon with an incompleteness that likely you will eventually see that incompleteness as complete this human in front of you will be Past you finding a new memory to make you watch not the ducks but the ripples that they make the evidence they leave to show the lake that their relationship is beautifully impermanent in the poem you like he says i am so frightened, i am so frightened twice like that to really make it exhilarating sexy inescapable you put your arms back around the human being you draw your lips to their lips and leave them there