dates like kites

eli clare's book of poetry 'the marrow's telling' spins in its interludes some beautiful imagery of kites.

i flew my kite for hours on end, spinning line out, red tail hawks keening on the updrafts, sun and wind reaching through me.

but its a tug of a kite beyond nostalgia. its an idea about stories and spaces. silences and echos. i've been on lots of lovely dates lately. and i've gradually stopped thinking of them as trials, of do or die. of make a move or look like a loser, because its all just noise. and isn't there already so much old music?

you are pressure to perform but i resist. performing. you make me just wanna be. and tell you my stories too fast. i liked it when we had to pause last saturday. and wait to say the next thing. wearing our own eager conversation out. but a running camcorder in an art gallery with park equipment indoors outfitted my mind just the same with our synchronized swinging and head thrown back laughing. you're elegant like not noticing the way tablecloth corners happen to neatly fall below soldier fork-knife-spoon. you take off thursday. and i think it doesn't matter like it would last year. you're not the hope of a hope. just a barstool til 2am beside me while friends danced nearby and we couldn't tear ourselves apart neatly, evenly. i'd finish your beer as you walked alone out the door that would soon be kicking my ass each time we watch our shaky footage.

spinning line out, i listened to the hills echo, keen, reverberate, cradling the red tail's lonely call.

i can barely get my groceries in the fridge fast enough to meet you parked outside my dark apartment. i came outside before even receiving your text, knowing somehow you'd never come in to get me. my throat was starting to ache with damp neglect and two nights under drunk stars-more-than-skies. but we drove. we drove as the wands of the gods crashed down around us. you were all business. ballcap concealing the back of a freshly buzzed head, you put on 'white sky' to duoro and explained weather conditions like a scientist making conversation. the sturdy backrest prevented any weak knee nonsense but the orchestra outside fogging windows surely made the steam inside the car quiver.

let story be that kite, wild blue of sky, tug and beckon, dialogue and demand.