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My wife sleeps, and I wear the shirt she wore to paint in. A thin blue
line crosses just under the left pocket. She borrowed this shirt, and I
smell her skin in the weave.
Earlier, in the midst of her work, I watched. Her back was to me, and
the tip of the feather tattooed on her spine showed above the collar of this
shirt. "Cobalt blue is perfect for sky," she said. Her left hand held the
top of the painting; her right stroked blue around the tree where she had
suspended a naked woman, her arms becoming branches on either side of the
trunk. Next to the tree, a man with a raven's head walked past, staring up
at her. She leaned toward the painting, this shirt loose over a pair of
shorts.
"Is she Christ?" I said.
"If you want," she said, raising an eyebrow, without breaking her link
with that world. She stuck the blunt end of the paintbrush between her
teeth and wiped her hands on the back of her pants, the blue smearing onto
her legs.
I left her studio and went to my study filled with my work on ancient
civilizations, resisting the temptation to go back, slip my hand between her
breast and the painting. She would smile and push me away, concentrating on
the sky around the woman, careful not to graze the painting with her body no
matter how much she wanted to color that world from inside.
There is the mystery, the paradox of distance, the pleasure of
unconsummated desire, and that is why I did not move, no matter how much I
wanted to distract her from that place.
Later, as I read again about Leda and the swan, she clinked two wine
glasses behind me, and she pressed her body into my back. I turned, and she
handed me a glass. Her fingers lingered. The wine cooled her hand. She
set hers on my book, and pulled the shirt, the one I have on now, over her
head. I kissed her, savoring the resonance of her flesh.
She pushed away, and I felt her, singing along my nerves. "I'm going to
shower," she said. "Then bed." She dropped the shirt by my chair, kissed
me on the neck, and hesitated at the door. She took a sip of wine and
turned from the waist, her breasts in profile. "She is the tree, not on
it," she said. "Don't stay up long. I want you near me." Her shorts
rocked on her hips as she moved away.
The water pipes vibrated through the walls, and I wondered if I could
know her. So many images I had of women: woman in a garden, woman
starting war across seas, woman in a centerfold, woman with child, woman
holding a dead son, woman burning. Woman in a tree.
No.
Woman as a tree.
I listened to the shower and envisioned rain on a lake. There, a
beautiful swan. Leda sits on the shore, the rain soaking the curls in her
hair, streaming over her body. She watches the swan. Her chiton sticks to
her flesh. She wonders at the swan's beauty, his supple curves as he tacks
toward her. His webbed feet sink in the mud strutting toward Leda and
nudging her face with his beak. She caresses his lithe neck.
He pretends to return to the lake but turns and prods her ankles with
his beak. He steps between her calves. The mud from his feet smears her
thighs, and he pushes Leda back with his wings. Her himation slips down;
his wings cover her breasts, her body. His neck straightens as he pushes,
curls as he pulls. Leda's body quivers, her back arching toward his
feathered chest. The stink, like wet dog, repulses her, so she thinks of
him on the lake, beautiful, tacking toward her, from a distance.
When the rain stops, she returns to the bank where she finds a feather
cemented into the swan's footprints. Near the opposite shore, he chases a
goose. Leda thinks of keeping the feather, but, rather, sets it on the
water. "I believe this is yours," she whispers and, within her, twin stars
shimmer.
I slipped into the bedroom, and the glow of the streetlight shined in
through a bare window, bathing her in a blue glow. I watched her sleep,
before taking off my clothes. My skin, a dark shadow, looked peculiar
against her ethereal blue breasts. I pressed against her. She woke. I
slid my hands to her hips. She opened and arched her back underneath me.
"Sometimes," she said, "Sometimes when I look at you, you seem familiar.
Sometimes," she said, running a finger along my throat and pulling me
inside.
Cresting, I fell away. She turned; the light crossed her back, exposing
the feather inked in purple over her spine. I tucked close to her until her
breath became heavy, then stole away to the tree woman. I ran my finger
along the hardened paint on her shoulders, down one arm, and out to the end
of the branch, but the raven man scavenged away my pleasure. I gazed at her
and left him lurking in the corner. Then I saw the resemblance, my own in
her, and pulled my hand away as if the paint was still wet. I looked to the
crow man. He was different, almost trembling as though he might weep.
That's when I retrieved the shirt and breathed in her scent. I watch her
sleep now and wonder what she dreams, what worlds she travels in. She lies
on her stomach. Her leg twitches. Her back. The feather ripples like one
brushed by the wind. It lifts off her and drifts above us before softly
spiraling into my lap.
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