Quinn - Early House

I lost a glove and, sad, the other at the breach would try to clap but couldnt reach across that gap. I lost a glove, then lost the other. Id no more forms that could withhold the snows, the storms, the perishing cold.

She says when we lean in to catch the scent that rain showers summon from the April earth dead millions groove themselves into the berth of our one sense. They are engulfed, content. He says let them do what they want, these dumb sad hordes of shades. Do you think that theyll come the moment I push back the floral hem of the summer dress you look so lovely in, and lift it off, leaving you just a grin? What do you reckon that will do to them?

For miles around, in every tree and hedge, the birds draw breath and sing that theyre alive. Ones left a feather tilting on our ledge. I pick it up and play pass after pass till with its tip I suddenly strum along the smooth slats of your spine, down to your ass. You part your lips and join their morning song.

As their four parents did before, lovers too, in sun or rain, or just a customer and whore rocked to the old refrain. Sometimes I am that kind of fool who tacks a moral on, some piece of trash I learnt at school or church the usual con of consolation or such guff. Because each year in May the new young people are in love that makes it all OK? Whatever. All I haves an air thats got a good refrain for all I care, for all I care. Here comes the lovely rain.

The affable minister murmurs to the host. Breezes glide across the parquet floors. The waiters move in silence. Now the wives draw dutifully together for a talk of family and schools, and watch the clock. Two years to go till our first child arrives. We live five floors up in a block of flats across the city.

Half a mile of muck to walk through from the Metro. Like diplomats, we say, No, after you, and fall in bed, still laughing, stripping off to fuck. Nothing of those hours has touched us yet.

No syllabus. I started reading Gibbon. Took up karate. A young guy from Homeland Security would come occasionally to train with us. On many porches the national flags unfurled. New wars began when others reached their end.

A ghost came whispering, Youre in the Empire, friend. One day, out of the blue, our eldest opts to walk alone to where the school bus stops four hundred yards into the big bad world.