Big Arms Big issues

I thought I saw you last night.

I stood where 24th St. kisses Lyndale Ave, underneath the winking “Hums Liquor” sign, bathing my forehead in a dull orange glow. Its subtle buzzing drowned out the 5pm traffic, crooning a love song to the sad and lonely, promises of comfort it will never keep. I cradled a brown paper bag hiding two frosty bottles of rosé and Sauvignon Blanc. Their cold sweat bled into my hands as I waited for the stoplight to change. Green. Yellow. Red. The sun was playing peekaboo with the moon, sinking itself into sleep, fingers of ochre and orchid wrapping their way through our tiny corner of the world. As the soft twilight played tricks on my vision, I looked up over the sweaty pavement and, to my delight, saw you. Black cotton joggers, loose grey sweatshirt, a beanie scampering towards the Wedge. Who else could it be?

How many times had we run into each other there? Locking eyes over juicy crimson tomatoes, vibrant green broccoli and royal violet eggplants.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

“I’m trying to decide what’s for dinner.”

“Will you make something for me, too?”

How many times had I gone to grab a $5.99 jar of Rao’s Italian Wedding soup only to discover another hand darting out, as if to wrestle it from me? Wait! I know that fingernail. That index finger. That wooden ring with a faint turquoise strip circling it. I’d trace my way up your arm to the jaw I loved to kiss to your blue eyes, assessing my competition, waving a white flag. “Should we just eat together?”

How many times had the bags of caesar salad borne witness to your attempts at pick up lines?

“Can I get your number?”

“You wish.”

“Where you going mama? Let me take you home.”

“I have a boyfriend.”

As your figure buried its face into its neck, shoulders bunched up and dashed into the store, my spirit cartwheeled inside me. I began to wave you over. The outline of my mouth making a J.

A shout for attention.

A plea.

A cry.

No, that can’t be real. I admonish myself. Recollection sinks into my gut, sword-like and soggy. I abandon my hand. Did anyone witness this foible? This indiscretion? I stop my lips, the rest of your name tumbling off my tongue. The “son” escaping into the dank city wind folding around me.

A bright pixelated outline appeared on the crosswalk. “Move,” it growls me out of my gauzy daydream. Right Foot. Left Foot. Right Foot. The man who was you, but is not you, has disappeared.

Gone.

This has happened before. A fleeting moment. A deception in the atmosphere. A refraction of light from the sky. And there. Directly in front of me. Just within reach. Is you!

Once, we sang happy birthday to my friend’s daughter, tiny voices and candlelight eyes embracing white frosted cake. I glanced to my right, noticing a black shirt stretched tight across a rippling male chest. There you are, come sit! I reached over to pull the empty chair beside me out from under the table before registering the obvious absence of delicate curls tracing the shoulders. The chopped hair revealing my friends husbands sin of not being you. A crab pinch to my bruised peach heart.

Once, I was walking down the street when suddenly silky sepia strands tangled into a bun appeared before me, looking like a faded photograph from my grandmother’s scrapbook. Beautiful but homesick. “Wait up” I shouted. He heard, turned his head. Forehead too broad. Chin too narrow. Nose too long. Ugly. I grimace at this cruel masquerade of you. The betrayal cuts to the core. I meld into the crowd. Hoping nobody else heard. Hoping nobody else saw.

Once, from the edge of my left eye, I caught a glint of crimson metal. A black helmet. The smell of exhaust. The roar of an engine. You went streaking by me. A dare to race you. I leaned into the steering wheel. Fiercely determined to win this time, I stomp on the gas. But then, the form was too slight. The motorcycle was too big. The red was too deep. It’s not ours. It’s not you. I lighten my heavy foot, allowing you to pass, kicking up dust. I feel the phantom twinge of my arm wrapped around your stomach as we flew through the city, windy with love on our tongues.

I like to let myself believe it’s you.

I am a man wandering a scorched desert. Parched. My lips shards of split clay abandoned in the kiln. Mouth a long ago dried-up river bed. Exposed. Cracked. Earnestly seeking water. Revival. Suddenly, there ahead of me, I see a shimmering pool. An oasis. Twinkling as if it were a silvery underbelly on a flopping fish. Cool. Clear. Quenching.

I accelerate my pace. Quicker. Faster. Sprinting. Rendered mad by thirst. Panting, I arrive at the shore to find…nothing? More desert. More sand. No water. It was all a lie. A trick. A joke. A sleight of hand. An optical illusion caused by the bend of light in layers of air.

It was never you. Only the mirage of you.