by Eliseo Martinez

I'm Casting a New Shadow

I remember love leading me
to a lake.
The sun was falling fast
into our faces
like hair in the wind.
We were naked.
We held hands at the edge
of the cold water.

"Let's swim across," she said,
like she had just read something funny
and was reading it back
to me.
I guessed we could.
I guessed we could try.

We swam across that cold lake.
I remember her body glowing under
the water. I remember the light
her body made.
Once I thought I wasn't going
to make it. She was swimming
ahead of me and did not notice
my moment of panic.
When that blue flame of mortality finally
passed from my stomach
we moved across the water
as smooth as frozen glass.
I never thought a day, or a moment like that,
could ever be born again.

Days changed to nights, nights into days
and our love was laid to waste.
There is nothing like love when it
evaporates.
Imagine the sun, the wind on your skin, her small hand
in yours, her teeth lined up behind
every soft, kind thing she showed you,
all being put out casually,
effortlessly, like a candle
before going to bed alone.
When the heart beats for no one
it screams all night in its dirty cage.
I was so goddamn sad until one day I
met a girl with a smile so bright
I never wanted to go back inside.
She took me out on a camping trip and it rained
the whole
goddamned
night.

Water dripped into our tent, my ears,
my dreams. By morning I had a new suit and
some new shoes made entirely of rain. She slept there
beside me. To her the rain was a compass she used
to draw a map of sleep that lead directly to herself.
When she woke up I convinced her to leave.

It was very early and the rain was coming down
harder than it had been during the night. We took the tent down
and walked back to the car in a rain so heavy we had to stop
and laugh at ourselves. I could not believe I was laughing with rain
falling all around us like bombs, like cold, depressed angels.
We got to the car. We slunk inside and changed into our bathing suits,
the only dry clothes we had.
I drove down the highway, an ashy scab across the gray
freshness of the morning rain. I lit a joint to help
ease the feeling we were running away.

All of a sudden, the sun burst through the clouds in
a golden light so clean and good it inspired the births of
new metals and jewels. It stopped raining.
I remember reaching my hand out
for the joint when the sunlight fell into
the car like someone waking up
in the backseat suddenly, stretching
and yawning, then disappearing like a spirit,
leaving behind something pure and living
in the car with us.

I turned to look at her. She looked
back at me. She was in a red bikini
and her hair was wet. She looked like she
had spent many years sleeping beneath the sea
like a flower blooming at night.
On her face was a natural smile like
one bird flying across a wide open
clear blue sky.
I was wearing blue swim trunks. We had both
emerged from the water, hand in hand, straight into
the sun. We were met with a light so clear to
our eyes, a new love was carved from it and placed
around our shoulders, our hearts, our faces. We drove
that way all the way home and it's a moment that ends
and begins again
with us.

Together we have emerged as small gods of
a gentle light and I know,
I know,
I know,
this moment has the chance
to be the rest of our lives
and I know
if it is lost
it will never be found
again.

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