Aquarium Friday and Other Stories

The Tint On Your Glasses

The marriage failed, they said

He cheated, he lied,

He took another woman to bed.

We want a divorce, they said; the differences are simply

Irreconcilable.

Whispers in cafes, Sunday afternoon brunch,

Bent shapes hunched over shared croissants;

Fearful, guilty –

“Do you think Oliver’s been faithful to me

Ever since we got married?”

“Oh don’t be silly, of course he has.”

“But we haven’t been to bed in

Two weeks, maybe three –”

A reassuring pat on the hand.

“It’s just a phase, darling,

Eat a bit, have some fun, and put it

Out of your head.”

So is love like the moon?

Does it follow these –

Phases? Does it wax and wane,

Grow and wither, like a petunia

Crushed by the January winter?

I see old couples on the street,

I hear the coos of teenage girls,

“Oh, how sweet. How long

Have you been married?”

Hobbling steps, asthmatic breath.

Winter is here.

Liver-spotted hands in firm embrace.

But white is beautiful – in its own way,

Don’t you think?

It’s been fifty years, maybe sixty.

Forever is a long time,

Longer than you’d think,

Long enough to love him,

hate him,

know him.

Long enough for there to be the eternal question:

“What is love?” And then you think,

Maybe this is it.

The shattering of dish plates,

That one crystal glass

You never really liked

(But it was a wedding gift from her parents).

The hum of the dishwasher, harmonized

With your weeping.

The smoke from your cigarette adding

To the heat of words exchanged.

Car doors slamming.

The flowers on your window sill are dying.

You sob, “What is love?”

The trees whisper, maybe this is it.

Or is it, (or maybe both) –

The look in his eyes,

Brown, green, grey, blue; Eyes

That are for one thing: you.

Soya-bean softness of Sunday lie-ins,

Fresh coffee. Kisses that feel like

The end of the world. Time passes on his skin.

You are everything,

You are nothing.

And you think, “What is love?”

And he says, “Maybe this is it.”

You see, what they don’t understand

Is this. You can choose.

Oh, you may wave your skeptical cigarette,

Have another drink – or two.

Oh, you may tell me,

“How very rose-tinted of you.”

Forgive me for my impudence, but I do believe,

The world is how you see it – how else?

Isn’t that what they all say?

Heisenberg, Schrodinger; perhaps

Love is simply a cat in a box, our hands

Poised above the lid;

Dead or alive

Until we see it.