What's It Like

What’s It Like? First: A strand of hair finer than silk in the Emperor’s robe blows across her face the very end catching in the corner of her mouth. She fills my field of vision her eyes looking full at me, there, a question therein: What’s it like? Then: Tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Yes, that dark spot in the iris, windswept black eyebrows thick and meaningful. Freckles (what an odd word). Some superlatives: She’s the orange and fire red of Oklahoma sunsets, Snake River waterfall mist, Palouse rolling richness, maple leaves drifting on the Guadalupe, warm butterscotch on vanilla ice cream clouds sweeping up the valley rain is sure to fall or is it tears? No matter. Of another order: The closet’s darkness she is blood on the hunter’s hands, desert dirt devil and twisted mesquite and rose thorns, hand tremors a finger on the trigger, harsh words spoken in anger; she can be cruel. But then: The whirligig dance at lake’s edge, white lotus above black water, the cicada wing I saw just this morning, her face so close to mine I can feel her skin’s moisture. I see most clearly that fine strand of hair. And still the question: What’s it like? Pine needles falling, I should think, koi blowing bubbles, a mother calling a hand on my shoulder the slightest touch whispers turn around see me. I won’t tell you lies; it hurts, that ache that arc that pain her fair hair’s autumn auburn blended sweetly with black water and her white dress, memories at the tip of mind, the spangled, star-struck twist and turn, dodge and dance of cold constellations. That’s what it’s like.