Refugee

Sunday morning on the edge of Noviembre was biting and left the streets empty. The yellow line, which strung together back roads, seemed to swivel. Perhaps it was the sort of cold that whipped the cornea until it cried; perhaps I just felt like crying – each tear to the tolls of a church bell, each vibration rippling to the back of my throat 'til I could taste my body’s salt.

I kicked the earth with my stride and watched deciduous spines curl around a gate in defiance to their battered night under blankets of rain. At least I had company in the woes of disillusion. The gate’s enclosure was typical of the Gothicus artistry that lingered in la Regione Lombardia. Permanent shadows, cast not by light but by battles and blood and historical passerby, seemed heavy in the stone.

I knew this sadness wouldn’t last. It was not caused by the rain nor the nostalgia that transitioning seasons often induce. The sky was what cradled me into café corners and inspired me to write. This sting was less expected than the rain and made frigid my will to accept.

Though within days it would thaw. 

Afterthoughts would melt through me,

the way tea crawls into your belly just short of boiling. 

e. chayes