Good Friday

I did the house chores, all the furious ones that go undone. And I had just started to dramatically sit when he asked if I’d join him on the porch. Well, that sounds nice, so I pulled the screen door to and let the circus of a spring-drenched afternoon spill in behind me. 

Just as our bodies settled into stiff wicker, we realized our feet had stayed chilly from the belly of inside, so we scooted them past the slab of covered concrete and let the sun openly lick them warm. And just as they were warm, he goes, “I’ve been bad about my water today” and had to go get himself a cold glass at once. 

I noticed my dog with his wiry coat that’s grown way too shaggy for summer. He situated himself mid-yard to bask and only had time to polish the left paw clean before he forfeited the scalding grass for a lonely patch of shade. A museum of weeds stood stubbornly still around him — don’t get comfortable, I thought — and there it came, a welcome wind to take them dancing. 

At last, we picked up the pages of our neglected books (mine of poems, his of rum) when sure as shit, a band of a million grasshoppers descended upon my tired concentration. Their erratic chirping, more like a buzz. Perturbed, I looked up and watched them live the lives they deserve. My eyes darted forcefully back to the task in my lap, but before the author could finish her thought, the hushed static of a baby monitor hatched into the faintest cry of an expired nap. I surrendered to her crib, and poetry aside, it’s like we laid eyes on each other for the very first time.

Is there any way of knowing what this Friday would have been without the grace of her interruptions? Goodness, that’s something I’d rather not think of.