I don't know what this is. It was the first thing he said to me beside the ambulance. We were standing. Only our breath in the cold touching. Plumery breath. As two thoroughbreds.
I know.
He reached out and put his arms on my shoulders. I remember the weight. A sense of a bridge. Something not there before. Slowly, he drew them back and with his soft hands lifted my collar such that I felt the back of his hand framed against my face. The hand of a poet. I cannot explain such a touch otherwise. His rotation, the warmth of his fingers splayed, gently pulling my satin lips to his. Like night falling into moonrise.
He breathed in. I lifted. A floating into. A flowing of rapids.
It's cold.
Yes.
Hold me.
Tight.
I closed my eyes, his breath on my ear. Warm like morning.
My name is Virgil.
I know. You told me.
I'm from Tennessee.
Kiss me again. Virgil. Like you're from heaven.
He did. He gave me heaven. He gave me much more.
Art by Andrew Jones
8 comments:
Tree, I've missed you.
I've missed this.
(And yet in my own real world, real pants with holes, real foibles, and real issues of war and pestilance, I've had my Virgil.)
Erin, I've missed you too. Welcome back. The arms of my blog are always widely open to your visits.
Kiss me again. Virgil. Like you're from heaven.
He did. He gave me heaven. He gave me much more.
I haven't been kissed like that for a long time...
Hugs,
Sue
Sue, I'd like just to be on the receiving end of that opening line.
No, I don't think I can read you this morning. I don't think I can.
Then just hold me like a tree holds an owl.
Fascinating image.
I loved it at first glance though I have a feeling it would take the longest time to find each reason why.
In this chapter, we see yet another of the distinctive and special characteristics of your work, the way in which the chronology is very clear though your posts jump around in time so to speak, notable especially with this chapter for I love that we have witnessed partial scenes from inside the ambulance, that we have seen the moment that Virgil passed, and some of the minutes, and the days that came thereafter, we know that in the very little time that they spent together, she loved and was loved and that she loves still, which is why this chapter, of breath touching, of being alone, of words offered and now asked, first touch, first movement toward each other, first touch is all the more touching. I love the middle part, the weight upon her shoulders, A sense of a bridge....beautiful chapter, back for more in the morning.
Thank you Autumn. I liked this chapter too. Very much. The opening line in particular haunted me for days. The scene of the two of them and those first two lines, OMG I can see it so clearly, hear it so distinctively, it has such a gravity, such a sear. I read it and reach for my eyebrows, just to make sure. :-D
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