The sound of the car’s engine. Warmth radiated from my heater, strength: 1. I discovered small holes in my stomach and I wondered if the butterflies were actually moths. Elf shoes, plaid skirt, light coat.
Movement at the front door
pulse quickens
The figure moves down the steps and into the darkness of Winter’s night
playing with my fingers
He sits in my car and happily hugs me. I return the favor.
Wheels devour the white lines and I wonder if we are in the future.
[empty parking lots]
My car is parked crookedly and we laugh about it.
We are walking; it’s chilly but not as cold as that first October night. I gaze into the glassy water and realize where we are.
“We’re at the duck pond, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.”
I start to shiver. I don’t know where we’re headed, but I trust him. The ground is soft and damp under my feet. I notice fading orange street lights and the occasional flash of a car’s headlights.
a sidewalk, three steps upwards, and we are standing before a bridge.
The water runs low, rocks protrude from the bed.
The streetlights battle the ever coming night.
We walk across the bridge, me, him, and our shadows.
I am a sponge. Absorbing each sensory feeling. My mind is quick at work, preserving this, this.
Dark structures lie before us. A playground
sits in the darkness.
“I grew up with this playground. It’s one of the old kinds, metal chains, slides. Not the plastic kinds.”
“Where are the swings?” I ask.
“Over there.”
When on the swings, we could no longer rely on our senses.
Reality blurred and the dim lights, the dark sky and trees like vessels intertwined with the sound of our laughter and the quiet creaking of the chains, breath after breath, together we swung in darkness.
Climbing the chain net, running down wooden swing bridges, feeling the wet metal. The smell of damp woodchips. Conversation breaks Winter’s spell.
“When I was a camp counselor last summer, I took the kids to the park. I remember they picked up all this mud and put them in small piles on this ledge. They asked me if I wanted to buy ice cream. I pointed to a pile and asked, ‘What flavor is this?’ Then, the senior counselor started to yell at me, telling me not to let them play with dirt. I said, ‘They’re four years old! That’s not dirt, it’s ice cream.’ What I love most about kids is that they still have their imaginations, they see what we can’t.”
I smiled.
The town pool lay hidden behind fences that we could not breech. We gave up trying to find a hole in the fence.
We walked around the pond. Giant puddles reflecting the trees. Ducks sitting silently. Contentedly.
We passed over the spot where we shared our first kiss
and felt the Universe twirl all around me.
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