The Conception of Isaac

At night, your hair was white waves,
the sand caressed our skin that could not be contained,
but God told you
you would be like the sand and the mountains,
eternal; ephemeral, like the breaths that escape our bodies:
Is this line of your arms around my breasts to cease,
like this night, when you will saddle your donkeys
and look towards a flash of pink -the sky bleeds
like a woman.

I do not bleed like a woman.

I have become drier than the brown warmth
into which we sink our bodies.
"I'll try not to hurt you", you said,
but I could already feel you lying,
and her shadow passed between us,
flashed and was gone, like a bat passing through the wind.

But tonight feels different - a mirage, perhaps.

I am drawn into the waves of your body,
like the bucket of a young girl, dipped into the well, slowly,
then faster, to slake the camels' thirst.

I have grown thirsty, my love, for the water of your kisses.

You do not have enough saliva to quench my thirst,
and when the dawn bleeds like a woman into morning,
I too, have become a woman again, sweet and prickly,
like the cactus flowers that line our tent,
like the taste of your tears.

Endings

Sometimes I find endings to be the hardest part - especially since they are so important, since the end is the final taste of the story that will stay in the readers' mouth. For "TV Lullaby", I am still struggling to find an ending. In addition to the two endings in the two previous posts, I am also considering ending it at: "Amid the smell of lasagna and robes, silks robes, chiffon robes that you left that night, I wait for your body to fill the synapses.", but that seems a bit too sudden. I would like to find a closer sentence to follow "Amid....synapses", and close with that, but that closer sentence is eluding me - which is annoying, but ok, since, like many works on this blog, I consider "TV Lullaby" a work-in-progress.

TV Lullaby: Alternative Ending

When you spoke about her, I didn't realize you were speaking about you. Her brown curls were falling onto the shoulders of her Chanel suit, and you were sitting in a robe, watching TV, munching on peanuts. Abe once told me you have the memory of an elephant, and I imagined the peanuts sending energy that enhanced the connections in your brain, synapses filling with electricity and chemicals; I wondered if maybe behind the elephants' memory, there was a love of peanuts, tasty and salty, like your tears that I licked in the dark. My tongue was pink; your tears watered the roses of my lips, but salt kills flowers. You told me that yourself, one night, but I could not hear you over the TV, the music to which we had begun to live our lives, empty dinner-plates cleared of the leftover crumbs of conversation, scent of lasagna on your body, and an endless amount of robes - silk robes, chiffon robes, terrycloth robes covered in rainbows.

Her brown curls were falling onto her Chanel suit - white, with slight green at the fringes. "She loves someone else", you said. "How can you tell?" I asked. "The kiss was too long.", you said, and you looked like an elephant.

Abe was eating peanuts, holding my hand. "I don't know how you put up with her; she has the memory of an elephant", he said. "So?" I asked. He shrugged. "Sometimes love is about forgetting." "No, that's not love - that's just happiness". He laughed, and his lips tasted like wine. "You've been drinking again", I said. "So have you", he replied.

Amid the smell of lasagna and robes, silks robes, chiffon robes that you left that night, I wait for your body to fill the synapses.

The TV croons a static-filled lullaby, formed by electric connections I can not understand. I play with the remote, and the black box is filled with naked bodies. We stumbled across porn once. I was enthralled by the glistening thighs. "Change the channel", you said. So I did. But now I allow myself to watch the bodies wrestling each other, looking like scenes from a Greek amphora, painstakingly glazed onto the side by a kiln that burnt the potter’s hand. His wife did not hear him when he cried. She was too busy fucking the blacksmith.

The bodies on-screen are swift and graceful – but the kisses are too long.

TV Lullaby

When you spoke about her, I didn't realize you were speaking about you. Her brown curls were falling onto the shoulders of her Chanel suit, and you were sitting in a robe, watching TV, munching on peanuts. Abe once told me you have the memory of an elephant, and I imagined the peanuts sending energy that enhanced the connections in your brain, synapses filling with electricity and chemicals; I wondered if maybe behind the elephants' memory, there was a love of peanuts, tasty and salty, like your tears that I licked in the dark. My tongue was pink; you watered the roses of my lips, but salt kills flowers. You told me that yourself, one night, but I could not hear you over the TV, the music to which we had begun to live our lives, empty dinner-plates cleared of the leftover crumbs of conversation, scent of lasagna on your body, and an endless amount of robes - silk robes, chiffon robes, terrycloth robes covered in rainbows.

Her brown curls were falling onto her Chanel suit - white, with slight green at the fringes. "She loves someone else", you said. "How can you tell?" I asked. "The kiss was too long.", you said, and you looked like an elephant.

Abe was eating peanuts, holding my hand. "I don't know how you put up with her; she has the memory of an elephant", he said. "So?" I asked. He shrugged. "Sometimes love is about forgetting." "No, that's not love - that's just happiness". He laughed, and his lips tasted like wine. "You've been drinking again", I said. "So have you", he replied.

Amid the smell of lasagna and robes, silks robes, chiffon robes that you left that night, I wait for your body to fill the synapses. The TV croons a static-filled lullaby, formed by electric connections I can not understand. If I could find the synapses, could I gently undo the chemical pathways, erasing the friction between us, like a cable-technician gently prodding the black box? Or would I merely hunker down on the kitchen floor, like some pornographic cliche, waiting for your body?

We stumbled across porn once. I was enthralled by the glistening thighs. "Change the channel", you said. So I did.