14
I.
In this way, I am able to tell you about the lies: half-lies, good-intentioned lies, lies with no thought in them whatsoever, which were therefore perhaps the most malicious of all.
I am able to tell you about hands, crossed and tangled in any hint of cover, and the story of her hands, to which I applied much imagination: Her hands dark-skinned by the sun, palms softly roughened from cartwheeling on tarmac, and the future of her hands befuddled by images of the present – holding a child, picking blackberries, still ringless in the right places,
always a glance away from contact.
I am able to tell you about car mirrors and stolen dinner-table moments and the feeling that, oh, you know more than I could say, and I’ve come home.
II.
But let me not ignore the truth, the truth of one long lie lived not in complete ignorance; the truth of a bastard son whose torn heritage caused him to split, not once but many times.
Yet with tears shed on my behalf that I would rather wish away, still truth’s retribution has not caught me, and I wonder if grace has spared me.
If so, can I live in the grace of a goodbye kiss stolen between the mirrors in the bathroom, this very morning, that felt to me as much a gift as a parting.
For yes, the look of parting in your eyes came after, and I hope I don’t forget it.
