On the nightbus Finn’s clothes marked him as a stranger, a dove among parakeets. Sal looked at him, twice. Then their eyes met.
love
The Return
Go, go now, with the wind and the rain in your face, go now, look forward, always look forward. And I, I remain, you in my heart.
The missing duck
“Daddy, why did you just say you couldn’t give a duck?”
“Oh – That’s because I’ve lost it and can’t give it to mummy as a present.”
Odyssey
-Remember, our wedding bed was a living olive tree whose roots still drew deep into the earth….
-BUT WHERE WERE YOU LAST NIGHT?
Mirrors
He shouted. She reflected back his anger. He wondered, incongruously, if anger was wave-form or particle. Waves overcame them.
Volare… Nel blu dipinto di blu…
I carried you inside me and now I carry the weight of your dreams on my shoulders. I shall not buckle. I shall not fall. They will not break me.
Dreams should be weightless, should be weight-free, should lift you up and take you onward, into the blue, into tomorrow. But as I sit and watch you sleep, on your mother’s young shoulders your dreams lie heavy.
And as I walk along the clifftop path, you sit on my shoulders singing Volare. (Sing, mummy, sing.) I can see the mountains of Albania beyond the blue, beyond the sea and the sky. Volare.
Call yourself a poet
I think –
It’s been said before.
No, I –
Really, it has.
Well, what I’m trying to say –
It won’t be new.
If you’d just let me –
You have to make your voice heard.
I really –
You need to say something new, something never said, and you have to say it out loud.
Well –
Out loud. You need to say it –
I love you.
–
I love you.
–
I said, I love you. And that’s never been said before, not by me to you, not here, not now.
Be quiet. Stop now.
I miss you more than words
I miss you more than words, more than music, more than singing.
I miss you more than breathing, more than blood, more than being.
I miss you more than you will ever know, ever dream or ever care.
I miss you now and now forever. I miss you now.
The birdwatcher sings
Regrets? I’ve had a few.
Rug rats? I’ve not had any.
Egrets? I’ve seen a few.
But love? But love?
But love?
Big thoughts, small lies
It started a long time ago. “I’ll be there at three, Ivo. And remember I love you.” But at three, three thirty, four, he was still alone. And if she couldn’t tell the truth about that, what chance was there she was telling the truth when she said she loved him?
He never recovered, never believed. Or perhaps in a way he did. And that was the problem. He believed every time until it happened again. He would believe, and wait, and feel his chest squeeze and his breath squeeze and the disappointment crush his heart.
I’ll be with you in five minutes.
I’ll be with you forever.
Ivo breathed out, once.
simonsalento 