snapdragons

i buried my aunt in the middle of a high-pressure system: the fog turned the graveside grieving to silhouettes, shifting from side to side like ships in the harbour. the oak tree's branches: tentacles - menacing, suspicious. i barely knew the wizened, made-up corpse in the coffin, and it seemed she didn't know many others. i was one of five listing shadows grouped wetly around the gaping hole in the ground.

later, in the dim pub, whisky turning warm in my fist, he stared at the girl next to me without listening to my pseudo-drunken babble. his eyes were intent. he nodded absently. i knew who it was without turning.

& she: she was a knife between the ribs. all glint and silver, dangerous-looking smile. severe bone structure. tiny fists, always either a) deep in the pockets of her track jacket or b) clenched. her name was Lily. she smoked like a factory, constantly issuing clouds of thick smoke. i began to think it was an intentional veil, to obscure her features, to render herself somewhat anonymous.

we would get high in her car: she'd inherited it from her dead grandfather: a lumbering, maroon town car - complete with a benevolently wide backseat, which we made frequent use of, mostly to the sound of whichever radio station she flicked the dial to. i can remember more than one occasion when her drunken fingers propelled us into static; (that weird gray hyperspace) and insist upon remaining there, guiding my fingers towards her equator. outside: a different kind of noise - thunderstorm, quaky & insecure, rattling the night with its petulance. behind us, in stoic indifference, the cemetery, its occupants silent in their earthy rooms, headstones illuminated starkly with each white blast of lightning.

i remember more nights than i do days. Lily occupied my hours - or, rather, i filled my hours with her. her drink: Citron and soda, and just a splash of soda. a lime, which she consumed before taking a sip, crushing the juice from its flesh with her teeth. her jaw: something i loved about her the most. lips closed, she was a Venus fly-trap, nodding demurely in the neon light before zeroing in suddenly on her prey. then: her hand on my elbow, eyes electric, muscles tensed with need. her urgent, hissed whisper in my ear, sound torn on her teeth: i need you. now. & i would oblige her, stepping through the door of the ladies' room & into a stall, rummaging in my pocket where i kept her craving. a few white snorts later, we returned & she was gone again, her white-blonde hair bobbing in the midst of the undulating crowd.

i sat at the bar, drinking cheap beer & nodding absently to the pounding music, or watching a captioned television. the news was on: it was the month of wildfires, snarls of orange and red marched across the wildland like a confident army. a lesbian couple tore my eyes from the tv - they stumbled into the bar as if caught in dream. maybe tripping - acid, psilocybin. both. they were prone to physically affirming their love for one another. lips, ears, cheekbones - later, drunker, hipbones, fingertips, eyelids. always smiling. i lost them periodically to the crowd and turned back to the wildfires.

i've nearly forgotten about him & his disappearance, even about what he left behind. i am too obsessed with Lily - she crowds my memory in photographic form, still shots of her carmine lips, of her ignited eyes, of her thumbs in the waistband of her thong, inching it down over her hipbones - her weakness for the Stones' "Under My Thumb"...

...his scowl, his sneer, carved into his face like a living cicatrix, contorting or relaxing depending on how much of himself he'd filled with alcohol. his jealous gaze, his uncomprehending glare, from across the room, from across the street, even when i couldn't see him, felt his eyes on the nape of my neck, burrowing into my skin as though seeking out the answer in my brain stem. his casual disappearance, those "ghostings" late at nights, mid-party. he abhorred the gluey procession of goodbyes & goodnights, near pathologically.

he left his notebooks in a scattered pile by his rumpled bed, each of them the same, hardcover black, unlined pages, filled with both sketches & wandering, abstract prose. this was a side of him he'd never let anyone see; kept it locked up like a bastard child he was ashamed of, but of whom he kept clandestine photographs. perhaps some of those drunken nights where i observed a creased furrow in his brow were dedicated to that secret, that jealously guarded Eden of his thoughts.

what was i, then, that hazy morning choked with humidity, with Lily at her job, meandering to his apartment red-eyed with marijuana & lack of sleep? some crazed Theseus at the entrance to his labyrinth?