—OH WHAT A SHAME MY TONGUE’S NOT TIED

 

Philadelphia Freedom, 1977

 

Bored, or as a prank, we call the late-night astrologer.  It’s $5.95 per minute. She speaks slow. Older, Erudite. Says, “I’m afraid…” 

You laugh and mouth Afraid.

“Afraid, what?” I say into the phone because I always take the wheel.

“Hmmm,” the astrologer says.

“Hmmm? Come on, we’re paying you.”

You expand and explode your eyes and mouth, Bitch! as if you’re wringing out a rag between your jaws.

“I’m afraid,” the astrologer says, “that you two are really in it now.” 

When next I ask what that means, something clicks, like heels, castanets, fingernails or the woman’s teeth on the receiver. Or it could just be static. Click-a-Click-a-Click-a.

I ask, “Huh?” because this is even weirder than I’d expected. 

The line goes dead after thirty-two seconds.

“What the fucking fuck,” you say, though I love how readily you swear, especially when nervous, but I love you more, vibrant yet splayed and hopeful on the bedspread. 

We laugh because we’re young as fuck and because it’s awkward. Silence is a stitch itself. A long thread with a frayed end.

We turn to kiss, breasts breathing on breasts, but pull away at the last second. “I shouldn’t,” I say, emptying mud into my guts.

“It’s okay,” you say, and it feels as if it is. “Hold me,” you gush, your lungs pulsing against my sweaty t-shirt. Pressed up against yours.

And that’s how we die, you and I, in an embrace. No motion forward. Maybe backward. The moment awry, bespoke and turned aside, like another bad reminder of how love is only real if it’s standard and time-stamped.