Consume(d)

Mid-July, mercury high, summer sky blue with a grey hue above the horizon line. The west wind will be blowin’ in a boomer come afternoon, but in the meantime she takes a set on the porch railing, listless eyes trailing, “The heat brings out the green in the leaves,” to nobody in particular she declares. And I in my chair say, “I reckon you’re right,” if for no other reason than to avoid a fight. ‘Sides it’s a day for the senses, not the senseless. Sounds and scents and sights abound.

I can afford to ignore her for a while more and tune my ear to acoustic sultry atmosphere. The falcon calls on an updraft, beneath the Oak our children laugh. The steady creaking of the tire swing, in Spanish moss the swallows sing, the gently lilting canopy a symphony, and over yonder I’d rather be, joining in the panoply of harmonies; but alas I set in my seat and wait for her to speak. Next to me the busy bees buzz-buzz the hydrangea, no danger posed to me by humming bees, (but by the three-week stranger flailing on the railing, that’s another story).

She sighs and stares at dangling, swaying feet. I sigh and drink in summer sweet, each scent a memory. Clippings strewn on lawn made new, clay yet damp by heavy dew. Blue Morning blooms in north-side shade, fallen needles blanket the glade.  Stubborn clover creeps and flowers, west wind smells of im’nent showers. Pavement baking, shingles broiling, o’er summer stew the sun is toiling and I’m steeping in the steam, in the fumes, but her perfume, (must be new), is a nuisance, an aberrance, and I abhor it as she sets there in cacophonous silence.

I ask “How’re yer folks?” But for the most I don’t care, just sick of her glare, her blank gaze, her dreary malaise. She shrugs. Fled to her folks for twenty-three days, and me left on the porch to sweat in the haze, to carry on ways. To greet breaching sun, to watch the kids play. To watch the clouds roll, to watch the Oak sway. To witness the rain wash chalk away — stick figures etched upon the walkway. To look for a dust cloud on the road. To watch each sunset scorn prayer and hope. To behold, from twilight flaming hedgerow, the longest shadows grow, reaching our home, and I alone — Damocles on my knees — on the porch  watch the clock, as each minute mocks the last, ‘til twenty-three days had passed away – all for a shrug and nothing to say.

“Have some time to think?” I ask, reclined in my seat, feet propped on spindles, faith dwindling with every beat. Mute on the fence, her indifference disrupts all my faculties, dampens the majesty of Mother Summer — even as flashes spark ‘cross horizon, my eyes on three children, but can’t hear them over her speechless imposition. Faux solemn disposition, contemplative though she’s made her decision with pinpoint precision, just delaying the collision, but she won’t hear boo from me. ‘Cuz hope as I may, I already know. Got counsel from stars twenty-two nights ago, when she first made escape, when she first broke our home. From porch chair in the gloam I had turned to the dome, and asked constellations for their revelations. Without hesitation they spoke truth that broke me, spoke truth that consoled me: said no one controlled me, take peace in the holy, in the branch of the Oak tree, and the children below. And so I’ve been waiting, anticipating her return — her answer — absorbing balmy summer, on the porch and under the Oak as the crows croak and the children chatter, as the wind gusts and the limbs clatter, as the sun sets and faithfully rises on my personal paradise with or without her.

“What you set your mind to?” She looks up and my throat telescopes to the pit of my gut. Though I stand on the precipice, I don’t forget, and by the Oak and the swing, by the song the jays sing, by the salt on my lips and the sweat on my cheek, by the solace from stars for three dreary weeks I’m accepting my fate — to turn my mate into an enemy of the estate. Flip the switch, stitch the incision; addition by division my mantra ‘til death. She takes a breath.

“Jesus, I think I wanna be done with you.”

Oh my heavens, I hop that fence and leave her to set in her wake, while I take a walk up the block, (clenched jaw), and make for the glade where my children are entertained by imaginary fairies and ancient, unbreakable blades in the Oak’s shade. Pluck a grass blade and give it a taste. Earthy breeze blowin’ in gray, shrouds of rain fall a coupla miles away, be here in an hour, I’d say. A deep draught of jasmine, and I’m in a valley tongue tied, lungs heavy with summer and tumult but the kids are just up ahead. I feel a drop on my head.