Mornings spread around a center (poetic prose)

It was the last napkin printed with strawberries, she had dreamt of talibans, and he gazed at her with that sweetness, that kindness and that love which were intrinsic to his gaze because they were inherent to him, from the closing to the opening of his eyelids, and in each closing and opening of days and of nights, with no interruption by slumber or awakening.

The dream had been a bad one, obviously. It was no good even to reason about it, because there are things that are just bad, and add nothing to the closing and opening of one’s perceptions except, exactly, the dry and colorless fact of being just totally bad.

She had bought those napkins, printed with strawberries, in a supermarket. Such a long time ago that not even all which had happened during that time made the count of time any more justifiable. She had bought them with the idea of using them in something atypical, not so much for wiping lips, but rather, in something to lick one’s lips about, and which was cutting them in round pieces to make caps for jam jars. Strawberry jam, in those days when strawberries were so abundant that simply eating them as such, even over and over, would not exhaust them.

He had arrived long after that, when the strawberries were no longer so abundant, not even close, but jam was still made of them. After the peach jam, the one he loved best and for which he would always save a little piece of toast, the last one. During those breakfasts at lunch time in the dining room. Following the opening of sensations to the closing, again, of arms and legs around shoulders and hips, with love so abundant at the center that simply making it, even over and over, would never exhaust it. And the awakening of mouths at the precise and moist center of the kiss around which the tongues had licked, leisurely, the opening of slumber and of sweet dreams that were totally good.

With him, all was like that last piece of toast that is saved for savoring, as if it were for the last time, what one loves best, always following what one loves the most and is therefore savored first, always, and always as if it were for the first time. Strawberry jam or the last kiss, peach jam or her breasts, first, in his hands, all, yes, all, as if there had never been a before and as if there would be no after. Totally new, totally sweet, totally good. Totally atypical.

Atypical, them, totally. Probably why they had found themselves and each other at the center of a totally atypical love when, around them, the typical search for love was such, that not even becoming typically lost in nausea and mistaking its typical twists and turns for typical finds, even over and over, would exhaust it.

It was the last napkin with printed strawberries, and there it was, by the plate with strawberries printed on, both with crumbs from the last piece of toast still adhering to the paper and to the porcelain, beautiful and sweet memories of realities of a present as sweet and good as dreams that are sweet and good in spite of dreams of talibans and bad times, gone and yet to come.

Because that was the first gaze by the opening of day, and it was that gaze, atypical, from him and just at her, intrinsic. Yet, because that sweetness, that kindness and that love where inherent to him, from the closing to the opening of eyelids, and in each opening and closing of day, with no interruptions by slumber or awakening, that gaze was, atypically, also at all and at everything. Because it was, always, as if it were the last, at the closing of night, and because, with him, everything, everything, and all, all, and her, just her, and all that love, so abundant that even saying it over and over would never exhaust it, were gazed at, savored, dreamed of, made and said… as if it were for the last time. The one saved for gazing, savoring, dreaming, making and saying in sequence to what one lives and loves, always, as if it were the first time.

© 2006 Alexandra* ~ OneLight*®