Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Body Heat

The day is overhauled in heat. Humidity 87*- in San Diego. Temp. hovering @ 95. It is Friday. It is Saturday. It is all day and then when the sun begins to set, it lowers it's head and breaths like a giant, placid bull and : it is all night. The kids scatter. L. is mucking about, complaining. My shirt tag pricks the back of my neck over and over. Sweat trembles down around it. The baby slaps my breast while nursing and sweat flies. smack!smack! Beads of sweat form around her little lips and her forehead. Her reddish brown hair is wet against her forehead. Fans nod their heads in every room, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth like ballet lessons, back and forth and forth and the sound of their dance is a humming in the entire house. The dogs lay pressed against the tile and the walls, unmoving but the pant. Boys on skateboards outside scrape the ground. My husband moves around the house, holding the baby, leaning in toward me, and I am stoned on him and heat. I want to place the baby in her crib and tear his clothes off and spend an hour cleaning him of sweat and spend an hour bathing him in more. All day long we swing the children back and forth between us like workers over water and we keep our eyes on each other. At night, I slide the baby seal away from me, stuffed on breastmilk still milking from her mouth, and find my husband in the thick hot darkness. This is my marriage, I think to myself, his hand on my rib. I hear an echo of a woman who lost her husband after 35 years of marriage: ..and then, when he died... and I shudder. I move my face into my husband and restrain my mind. Across the stilled nighttime backyard a woman's voice rings out, high and trembling. The sky slinks into our room through the open window. We move together with the fans. Everything is completely normal and dramatically surreal and I am a lit match in the lighter fluid of his sweat. We are alone together and nothing else could compare.
Lone Star Ma said...

Beautiful.

Steph(anie) said...

mercy

Elizabeth said...

I need to go lie down.

Anonymous said...

Whenever I fall harder in love with my husband I tend to start thinking of the day that I might be left alone without him. Morbid, but makes me just tumble more. Always reaching...

Love this. Beautiful, as usual.

Rachel said...

I love the way you love!

Petit fleur said...

How long did you say you've been married? You and Mr C are an inspiration~
xoxo

Steam Me Up, Kid said...

Atta girl! :)

I'm Katie. said...

Sometimes I hold onto your words just for the wonder that this kind of love it out there.

Middle Child said...

How beautiful and raw - and wonderful to see how you love your husband while he is here... that's the trick - my blessing for you both is that you both have all your health and live till you are ready to die, close to 100 surrounded by the generations...or as the Irish say "May you live one hundred years with one year to repent!"

Caroline said...

Literally and figuratively HOT!

I love it. Steph's comment pretty much took the words right out of my mouth--Mercy!

Anonymous said...

Sigh. It's like reading the live and love scenes in Diana Galbadon's Outlander series...only better, because it's vivid and real and not made up. Your writing brings tears to my eyes and a smile to my lips.

Baby By The Sea said...

It was so hard for me to get past the first line. I wore a down vest on the first day of school walk for my first grader this morning. Brr - Fall is approaching here.
This is amazing, so tender and honest.
"The dogs lay pressed against the tile and the walls, unmoving but the pant. Boys on skateboards outside scrape the ground. My husband moves around the house, holding the baby, leaning in toward me, and I am stoned on him and heat. " Perfect prose.

Sarcastic Bastard said...

You are a sublime writer, Maggie May. Sublime.

ashley said...

Oh yum, have missed your words. X ashley

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