—EVERYWHERE, SOMEWHERE, PEOPLE ARE HOLDING HANDS

 

 

 

Plenty

 

There were rainbow flowers in her hair when he kissed her. The taste of purple or mango on her lips. A lovely scalding moving through his circuitry. He kept his eyes open to watch the waves shimmer and lap and dance. Watched her eyelids breathe and unknot like a chest exhaling, like a chestnut inhaling into itself. He cupped her face, bowl-like, feeling the crystal slickness of her jawline, gently thumbing the invisible mole on her lower chin where her soul peeked through.

If this is love, he thought, then what use is Heaven? 

 

She became a long, unsteady drip, endlessly fluid and elastic, all squirms and rain worms. Swam through his breath and lived there for several minutes or eons. She wrote their initials on the inner sides of his molars and giggled, so he kissed her more urgently, until several galaxies exchanged prisoners instead of friendly fire. Her own breath floated like a spiced sea at sunset, with squirrels and rabbits flouncing, minding their own business while simply counting the spare change scattered over lawn upon lawn.

If this is all the time we have, she thought, it must be Heaven.