Emulsion

The storm flickers in jagged frames – silence, when I hear my breath, my legs falling to asphalt; screeches, when I hear the water, the air, wrapped in sheaves of wind across the road and against my limbs.

A man stands in the rain. His two vivid blue eyes dart around the alley with detached indifference, until they sharpen with an intense curiosity at my projected youth, my imagined life. His tall, spindly legs spring into motion, he jumps towards me, reaches my head, whispers to warn me of what he sees – the rain falling without notice, the unembodied animal, the restless wisps.

My ass bites into the rocks for comfort, fails to. I see you flicker in jagged frames – silence on the river, when I hear us go over the same moves, same dangerous heights; screeches, when I hear your contorted animal, the earth, reveal themselves as we dance. If the moonlight did not reveal our faces, I might follow the drops falling onto the ice, the secret water below.

The restaurant’s semi-reflective glass draws wisps where my limbs fade in its neon signs. I vaguely notice a porcelain cat wave through to me as my eyes dart from shadow to shadow, expanding the wisps into figures, past and future forms.

The storm and I flicker in jagged frames – silence, when I hear my own lack of presence, my discarded possibilities falling to thought; screeches, when I hear the water, that presence wrapped against my face, my hair, through my shivering back and neck.

The shivers do not remind me of the cold, but of that necessary emulsion – the body counting what I cannot, the mind recounting what I can.