Jagged with Love

Krash

KraSH Too many things happen quickly. Like the bullet shot into a mattress. Like this morning, the diligent rhythm ofthe porch swing, a fInch with her breakfast among the mulch and roots, and I didn't think the Thud I heard was a car crash because the word thudwas too slow. There wasn't even the fantastic Krash! you hear in movies. It might not have happened at all, but then a man and a woman stood on the street, peering at footprint-sized dents and a little steam. They squinted, exchanged cards as you would cheap gifts, embarrassed and slippery. So little time was wasted even the sunshine was not flustered, though I thought things would slow, time would thicken into some painful pudding around the bodies, reducing the speed of eyelashes, glances, archingwrists and elbows. Instead, it was: I slept with her. Ai; quick as the fInal stage of birth, the way the pushing and moans slicken into an immediate red life, your words bulked enough to allow that weightlessness of confession, butyour tongue lay, far more inert than a tongue should be in such moments, for if anything dispenses time shouldn't it be the tongue, the twistingwet muscle that will form words days and weeks later, words to take the sting out, like bamboozle, a wonderful deceleration for the mouth: our fIngers meshed in the carpet, our faces down, speaking into air that snaps and syrups, speaking, and each syllable falling calmly as thirty shekels into your hands. 9 ...