Passing Afternoon
But my hands remember hers
Rolling around the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned
-Iron & Wine "Passing Afternoon"
It's like the first creeps of Spring. The very first, and the humidity and overbearing sun remind you how harsh summers can be this far south. But you have packed us a little bag of gleaming water balloons, swollen and glistening with droplets of water settling softly, shining in the sun. And you have a water gun clutched at your side, which you guard feverishly and without mercy. Your curls are wet and deflated and dark waves are there instead, to hug the curves of your sloping shoulders. We are sitting in the itchy grass and you bite into a sandwich and everything is simply perfect.
I crawl over, not before you eye me warily, your delicate hand hovering over the neon bright water gun. I raise my hands in mock defense. The wet grass itches my stomach. I glide over to you like a snake, slithering and lethargic. You are my mouse. I am the hunter. I pounce, and you are underneath my fingertips and you are shaking with laughter as I bite onto your skin.
And then I am not biting but kissing, planting ridiculously wet kisses onto your freckles. I am seducing my prey, my little mouse. But you involve the water gun and my jealousy blooms like a sunflower. As we chase each other across the grass, the dirt gets stuck to my feet and now I run around with little speckles of annoying dirt clinging to my soles. The trees overhead point as a plate is rattled and the cheetos fly everywhere.
I crouch down and clutch each cheeto in my hand and return them to the safety of the plate, ignoring your taunts and bluffs( and the not bluffs) and your eyes which always are looking at me. Peeking a glance underneath my dripping strands of hair, you are looking at me with that smile of yours, and your eyes are squinted in genuine happiness, and your hands are on your knees expectantly. Such a familiar sight, you are. In a moment of spontaneity, I dash for the water balloons, but I am so slow and you know that, so we are struggling with a bag of water balloons and you look so beautiful speckled with sun and shadow and laughter.
And we find ourselves where we left off. Only now you are the predator. And I am your little mouse. The sun warms my legs, and you trail another finger slowly down my back softly like a china doll, a sea in your eyes and secrets in your gaze. In my hand are the flowers you picked for me because you know I like flowers. And you reach over and I show you how to string them together and make a headband but it's been so long and I am thinking that everything is simply perfect. And in my bones I am thinking that this is just another passing afternoon.