The Possible Movement
The possible movement was what they strove to create.
A movement that would change the entire world.
They whispered it into each other's ears at night,
convincing themselves that it was possible.
How hard is possible?
Everyone conceives it at one point or another.
He stood behind her as she looked out at the clock
and put his hands on her shoulders.
Her palms on the window, the condensation
of a winter night. There was no snow on the ground.
It was in fact balmy, not right for December at all.
Yet there it was melting across the glass, tiny beads.
The art student
He comes from the place in which her family first settled when they came from blank so in this sense they have a history. This serves as good enough explanation for the way they felt the metal balls inside their stomachs drop when they met each other. It seems likely enough that fate would wield the sugar container empty and that he would be descending from the stairs just at that moment so she could ask him, "do you know where there is more sugar?"
They did not have sex at the time she was writing this. Of course, he was no Rick Shimmel. His name was Billy. When she thinks of him she thinks of two things. First that song that goes "Billy don't be a hero" and then Billy the Kidd. Both seem fitting descriptions of him.
All things lead to other things just as all thoughts lead to other thoughts and everything in a way leads back to sex, which is to say at some point they will conjugally engage if not physically but mentally, spiritually, artistically which is an essential tenant of the possible movement.
Synaesthesia
it moves slowly at first, then
there had been white linen and music
she felt herself falling
it was not enough that it had been painted
that he had wanted to give her something, a sign
she had always tried and let it slip away
from her
that if he looked long enough, he could move the paint with his eyes
that he had set the table with crystal, but could not bring
himself to fill the glasses
like the melting of a peppermint on the
tongue
he willed them to wheels, danced breath into that which was still
that there was something about her that held and refracted
light
the memory of something sweet
that you could make a room a canvas
that he could reach out to touch her arm
she thought of the moments of her life, how
perfectly wrapped like little candies, like
sugary gems
that color could not be still
that there would be only emptiness
she saw herself as a girl and realized she
was still there looking over the lip of the
dish
he thought of ballet
how it was not the dancers' bodies, but it was the colored
tulle and gauze that moved them
that when the words ran out there would be
this
that the fabric shimmered and spun absent of flesh
he thought of his body,
how you have to be quiet when holding
something on your tongue
all the movements that were happening
every second
that if you name it, it will disappear
the way his cells had looked under a microscope
purple membranes vacuous blue holes
she did not know how to go about telling
him
that he could feel them moving, small colored ants crawling inside him
that he had wanted to tell her
she knew there would be tears, soft salty
diamonds, so she could remember what
sadness tasted like