lene and marie
Two schoolgirls on a Saturday outing eat figs beneath an unwanted mimosa. Soft textures of a bed of fronds nestled over pine needles. The sweet smell of cedar. A crushed cardinal’s skeleton. Early spring breezes and secrets whispered across the lake. Three men row crew. The girls sit upon a Tunisian blanket with frayed edges and threads dipped in dyes of ochre. The flesh of the fig harkens to a previous meal enjoyed during a small summer past. A place where the girl’s first met nestled among familiar relatives, a dog that everyone could rely upon, games of transhumance, a gold gilded aviary filled with birds in hues of blue. A time and a place where two friends could find something called life uncomplicated.
The sweet tree loosens a pink flower and the sprung hairs enable her to glide down and off the shoulder bag of she who cannot smile. Curiosity has made her lips purse. The mind wears shoes and walks down crowded aisles of Chinese markets looking for something akin to an answer. Stacks of bottles, layers of plastic, bent wood, a tray depicting Singapore with all its calls, noises, creatures, and boys with beady thoughts. Daytime neon lights. The smell of a child’s urine. She can easily blink herself to the present yet refuses the easy path to her apperception.
Let’s go swimming
the fig bearer suggests to the one who bears too much. Too lost to be present. Well eyed tears beg such questions from her friend yet all ideas of peaceful freedoms seem as distant as solutions she cannot muster.
My heart has already drowned
Marie replies, to which another fig is crushed in Lene’s hand. Seeds and wasp’s eggs ooze between the fingers of surefire confidence and gratitude. Of a healthy life and a secure past. A future guaranteed. She embraces her drifting other half of blood. The fig bearer squeezes and expands hope and grace with every beat of her heart to resuscitate her friend’s below water. A sigh of winds sways the mimosa. More twirling self-effacing flowers fall into the water which reflects the comrades, their hair bound into a nest.