Sometimes too much of a good thing is too much...
I sat on the dock
early each day.
A few fish
broke the surface
leaving ripples
behind.
Back in the house
Chris’s breasts
were rising and falling
slowly
with the pulse of her breathing
as she still slept.
Nothing was going to be any different
today than any other day
not now
not ever.
“I don’t wanna keep going like this,”
the redhead said to me
at our regular lunchtime get together.
“What’s the option?” I said back.
“The option is to stop!”
She was getting angry —
Her husband was still
out of town —
He went out of town
too much.
I remembered Chris,
Earlier that morning —
Me sitting on the dock,
Her still sleeping . . .
The redhead interrupted my thoughts,
“You’ll never leave her!”
“No,” I answered, “probably not.”
“Fuck you!” she said.
“Good idea,” I said back,
walking across to her,
grabbing her by her thick
red hair,
almost gently,
but only ‘almost’.
“I hate you . . .” she said,
but her voice was soft
as she unbuttoned her blouse,
while walking towards her bed.
Chris said, “Hi” as I came into the house.
“Hi” I answered.
She came over and kissed me.
I kissed her back
resisting the mild impulse
to run my hands up her sides and
cup her breasts.
Are you hungry?” she asked.
“Not really,”
“You eat already?”
“Nope, just not hungry.”
She laughed, “I’m gonna make some popcorn.”
I said, “I’ll probably eat some.”
she laughed again, “You always do,”
she said
as though she knew me so well.
Next morning
out on the dock again,
I saw the blue heron
I often see when I’m up early enough.
It circled over the lake
to the south.
I began to think.
’I know these two women,
one who loves me
and one who hates and loves me.’
Both were likely sleeping
in that moment.
Both had husbands gone from their beds.
There seemed to me
to be nothing else to know,
not that knowing this helped anything.
The heron dove down,
snatched a fish and rose up
flying away.
The water where he’d hit rippled out
in weakening circles,
growing fainter
the wider they went.
There was nothing any different
from one ripple to the next.
I thought,
nothing much ever really changes anyway.
No one ever gets a gun out
presses it gentle/firm into his own
or anyone else’s ear and pulls the trigger.
Well,
in truth,
some people do.
But not most of us.
Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash