void upon void upon void

After pre-grinding the morning's quality coffee he would lock all the doors in his cozy cabin, one by one with care and practiced ease, to keep the murderers out. A thick and sweet woodsy smell like burning autumn leaves would hang and hover in the warm air, draped like freshly made sheets across the heated breeze from the window unit that stirred strands of her pigtails as she watched him move,
like ripples across sighing brooks from the skipped rocks of lovers picnicking in the sun.
He was a hummingbird. And she loved to see him flitting, flying,
frenzying from one flower to another,
always moving,
moving mountains with that bright eyed wide smile she so adored.
It would flash across his features from time to time,
weary in the late hours but still shining and prominent and slightly knee-weakening even.
The momentary gleam of pure white in that sea of scruff would make her toes curl with joy,
hibernating within her fuzzy house slippers, chipped orange polish slowly cracking off with the passage of time.
His flannel coat would hang haphazardly over the rocking chair and the scuffle of his bare feet across the faded browns and navys of the oriental rug would make her feel at home,
and whenever her lips parted to murmur these things out loud she found herself kissing him instead.
And he knew.
He told her stories about flying refrigerators and the children of old women beating the piss out of salesman,
as she laid curled up on his chest giggling and grinning girlishly in giddiness,
and he knew. He knew, and so did she, that night.
It hit her headfirst like a soccer ball gone astray and aimed wrong and yet just right,
straight to the side of the head and pit-stop at her fluttering heart.
Christmas lights outside in the trees, lit into the night, dangling from the branches and swaying lightly and carefree in March's easy, breezy, cool wind song,
and she knew.
Mug lifted to mouth with the straw bracelet hand, curled toes, and vertigo, and then-
this strange glow. Welcome and bubbling, seeping and melting, spreading and blossoming, burgeoning and birthing...yes, it was there now, to stay.
Irises in the window, half-wilted but still regal, facial hair in her toothbrush bristles, and she liked it there more and more every day.

"The ghosts are back," he whispered.







She carefully unfolded the parchment-like paper with her rainbow gloves, wary and eager.
The ripe smell of fresh strawberries coming from her bag made her stomach grumble impatiently. "Shhhhhh," she said. And then she read.




His words on her windshield, his scent all over and creeping into her head,
and outside air was like water once again, she was breathing deep and drinking it all in with no lack of fervent gratitude: the Universe was swelling for them.

There were promises quietly lying in his steps and spring could be seen in the little white buds gathering in the bushes lining the avenue, the ones with plastic bags tangled in the branches. She didn't mind that she came home smelling like fish and chips, or corned beef and cabbage, or fried corn dodgers, grease smudged in the denim wrapped around her thighs; she didn't mind that her Spanish was too rusty for her preference, or that she would sometimes wake in the night choking on air, sweaty and feeling nervous, as though she had been fleeing, or dying, because she could share dairy-less ice cream with him as he weaved tales of the gem of his childhood- her favorite reservoir of sweet, soft power, wistful and rustic and the most delightful feast of memories her mind had ever devoured. In the wee hours of the morning, smears of chocolate would appear across the white and shiny polished surface of his keyboard and would later leave the residue of laughter in his mouth while she dreamed of making love to him in the river waters after dark, or behind the dunes while the salted moonswept waves washed away their cynical sides and happily scratched their sun browned skin with seaweed.

Her bathroom smelled like Spanish Amber and cedar, and her mind was filtering images she could barely fathom, torrents upon torrents of aquatic ponderings, fresh and sparkling from the aquifer and pushed through the natural springs like thin honey. She would run through the old, familiar neighborhood with a thick head of joy, over the rusting and crumbling sidewalks, and she would remember rollerblading through the gutters and sewers, or sleeping in the guest bedroom with the the closet ghost. One black rectangle of stone had slid slyly from her grandmother's ring on her left hand, but she only noted it and smiled, for nostalgia coated and nursed the newness streaming through her networks of capillaries, replenishing the drought soiled banks and filling her up, satiating her growth and her streamlining spirit, branches upon branches upon branches like the ones she slept in as a youth.