Couples

Sharon Wahl Couples Since our break-up, I have wanted to urge everything to stay together. Apply epoxy or cement, invest in chains, tie your limbs with silk. Cling. Retain your present position. You can work it out. "The Kiss" (Gustav Klimt) They have been kissing since 1907. Her fingers will always curl into his hand, his hand tenderly wrap her head. They are one thing, patterned robes and heads and hands and feet. I am fonder now of painted things, which depend completely on each other. A man and a woman can kiss on a flowered field at the edge of space, a man and woman can be held by flowers over an abyss of gold stars for a century, and not fall. Commitments As the pages of a book are always next to one another, the days of the week, Friday to Thursday, the way 2 trusts 3, the way notes make up a scale. Lamp and Bulb I came to resent the lamps, whose light bulbs, installed so intimately , when used up were unscrewed and casually replaced. Door and Room The room said he didn't need a door. A door would let in wind and spiders. Something would make a nest inside, and leave crumbs. Pistachios I ate an entire pound of nuts one night, wanting something to do with my hands, something good to do again and again. I split the shells one after the other with my fingernails and dropped them into a pile on the counter. I liked the salt on my tongue. For each nut I ate, two halves, once neatly joined, were tossed away. Stove and Sink Pots are the handmaidens of their long romance. "He would fry you with his flames, he would sauté you, he would make you boil," the pot told the sink. "Did he show you?" the sink whispered. "Oh yes," said the pot. The sink drooled. "She would bathe you, she would cover you in suds," the pot told the stove. The temperature rose. 52 the minnesota review Candle and Rain They met in a storm, the candle on a windowsill, rain spattering the panes like pebbles thrown for attention. I can't reach you, the rain said. But it's easy, said the candle, shining through to light his drips and streams on the slick glass, gold rivulets, drops with her flame inside them. They were devoted, every drop carried her picture until it slipped to the ground, falling dark from her. I can't reach you, the rain said. The candle burned for hours. It's easy, she said. The rain would fall and she would burn. That was all, nothing else. I can't reach you, the rain said. Cave and Weather Weather tried everything to get inside. The cave stayed cool. Weather made rain, warm winds, hail and lightning, snow. The rain seeped in long after it was rain, through dirt and stone, so thick by then with longing that the drips formed fingers poking slowly through the ceiling and reaching up from the floor. And sometimes they touched. Soap Bubble and Cactus There were mornings when new buds opened and I thought cactus blossoms were the most perfectly formed of any flower, an undiluted orange, petals classically tapered, Mozart growing straight from thatchy bristles. What was inside these lumps that knew how to make bright flowers and squeezed them out through the thorns? I floated nearer, like a fragile bee, and popped. How determined I was. Nature and Alchemy Nature, my dearest, said Alchemy—you are glorious, unparalleled in your beauty, endless in your inventions—but there are a few things about you I would like to change. . . . Logic and Anatomy Logic guarantees that always, no matter what, there is something better fitting, something with a tighter ass and a more reliable car. Face and Mask Don't take it off. Let it live next to your skin, which it envies. Widen the eye holes, if necessary; and the mouth, naturally the mouth must be large enough to take in a fork or spoon. But expressions, what are expressions? Wear this one a month or so and you'll see that...