Rooftops

Oh, oh, oh, you rooftops! Remember last night, when we had had our fill, and I said it was time to go? I wanted to visit the rooftops. I climbed/floated up the improbable stairs and emerged on a sun- and moonlit night. The terra-cotta shingles shined, and sculpted yew trees hid coed lovers. I could see the medieval chapel floating over the general store. Oh arched stones!

Our love is a rare thing -- a spot of life on a distant planet, a burble of conscious molecules in an acidic soup.

It is not like those garages and mosquitoed cabins. It is not like that manhole next to the field, or like the bike paths where an unknown father knew my name. It is not like a mustard fairy or a dancing ogre. It is not like a moment of marble bliss, or even a short patch of stubble beneath the stairs . . .

Our love is an improbability: an unusual meeting of exotic birds, of broken birds miles from their migrations.

It is not like intergenerational passions of curly dark mullets, or well-chiseled and near-sighted vagabonds. It is hardly the teenage Ken dolls of perfect plastic and exquisite guilt. It is by no means the bohemian on the rubber carpet. Nor is it even the supposed bliss on four long legs.

Our love is a whisper, and also a barbed arrow shot from a distant tower. I suppose it is a desperation: a blanket suffocated in our arms, a pond drunk empty by an extreme thirst, a fist of fingers broken against solid earth.

I leave . . . I will leave all tonight . . . There is a place of beaches and hotel rooms. Of winding roads and tunnels. Of deep-set lighthouses and enormous ballrooms.

In short, of rooftops. Have you seen the distant smokestacks? Have you seen the robots dipping in the water? Have you seen green hills naked but for mist? Have you sat and sipped in a bit of wind . . . deflected the realities?

My little feet barely fit on the roofs -- two steps and I am in a different city, causing chills for blocks with my shadow. Look up and see your beast! Look up and see the sad wanderer whose feet fit in no town.

Ah, well. Our love is a pillow. It is a quiet snuffling. It is a baby's speech and a spectacular chandelier. It is a window looking on to wind and electromagnets. It is an angry trip and cows in a field, back steps and a cement-blocked garden. Open arms and violent jealousy: a pockmark on a desk. Fishcakes and flowers. Popcorn. Necromancy. Bottled water.