the price to be exacted, for the chance

Peeks of sun - thus blue skies - glint through gray. I warm my hands on a cup of hot tea, sweetly fragrant, tart with lemon, savor the feel of light cashmere garments that caress my bare arms and breasts, nipples taut

--exquisite homemade shrimp shu-mai yesterday, songs of songwriting poets Bob Schneider and David Gray carefully downloaded, savored, again listened to (the color of the ghost of a moonbeam; summer sky is blushing pink), but I don't wish to use them up, spend them, but oh the way they write; downstairs, laundry, sheets awhirl, discounted chicken sausage cooking, must put together dry pancake mix to go with half-price bananas, I love I love I love, can it be, my mind a jumbled miscellany, tangled clot of rainbow threads in unkempt sewing basket--

Stamens of ripening lilies on my desk reach upward expressively. If I touch or so much as breathe on them they'll fall off, crumble into indelible stain, henna powder. I look up stamen, it's from the Latin - remarkably, for thread.

***
It seems he's returned, in a way, as suddenly as, months ago, he'd disappeared, the other evening a page hit from a server called "Object Muse." Am I that to him? Perhaps. I thought about this in my shower and a line came to me: No answers will be forthcoming. After I dressed I jotted it down, and lines after that, without a word, forever out of reach, a jay calls, I'll never know why.

Yesterday a different thought, as I walked with weights in the park: if I could have one wish it would be to see him again, just once. And then I thought - what if I did? Would that really be enough? Is that consistent with acquisitive human nature? But I thought, as I marched - yes, that would be enough. That would be the wish to be granted. What would I give for that wish? Honestly, the thought absurdly came to me - my life, I would give my life. So melodramatic! I wasn't feeling melodramatic or depressed though. It just felt like - that's what I would like the very most, and if that were granted, then what would be the point beyond that? But I'm sure that isn't consistent with my human nature - I would wish more life, anyway - I believe I am acquisitive - that way. And yet, that thought did come to me - that formula, that high priced exchange. One must give something up, as in a fairy tale. What fairy tale? Why do I say that? But it does seem that one must always give something up, for the chance.

This morning I heard a jay call - was it looking for its mate? No answers will be forthcoming. Do jays mate for life? Neither my Audubon (pages crinkled, possibly from the time I fell out of a canoe on the East Branch of the Delaware River) nor my Sibley's says.

Did he give something up, in exchange for something else he desired, or needed to do, in disappearing? Has the bargain been fulfilled, so now he can come back?

No answers will be forthcoming.

Wish, part-granted.