against tides
(click for more text)
Revolving text
Site map
|
The ferris wheel stops for a moment and we catch our breath. We
are looking east over the somehow scrawny skyscrapers of downtown, the
heads of the crowds toward Denver International Airport's whitecaps
in the distance. We start swinging slowly in unison, the metal rocking
beneath us as the car slowly lifts and then jerks swiftly to a stop.
The lip of the car hits my neck, hits the swell of your back. I lean
into the warm yellow plastic. Look up into the sky. Look, I say, you
can see where the moon will rise. You laugh.
We gaze at the cloud strewn horizon, wondering what is real
and what is merely water vapor. We still swing softly,
slowly. Your hand grasps mine.
I love you, you say. Your voice is smiling and I shrug into
your arm, now protecting my head from the shiny stickiness
of bare plastic.
I look at you. Loving you is something that I no longer
question. That isn't why I haven't given you an answer.
It's not why I am hesitating, my lips unwilling to form the
words, yes. Love is definitely not the issue.
The issue is living with you. Being there again through
thick and thin, better or worse, richer or poorer. Which is
a promise I have made before. And one I wasn't able to keep
then.
What makes me think I can keep it now? Why do I think I can swim against
the tides of fate yet once more?
I say nothing.
|