<\/p>\n
She was the type of woman
\nwho collected other people\u2019s impressions
\nthe way hungry men collected food stamps.
\nShe said she was fashioning a blueprint,
\nshe needed an outline of things.
\nShe didn\u2019t make sense to him.
\nHe said, \u2018Every time the world turns into a Chet Baker song
\nyou\u2019re sifting through sounds and words and meanings trying to find the
\nexact fit for the absence of before
\nas if the world were a giant jigsaw
\nyou were trying to breathe
\nthrough your memories and skin.\u2019
\nHe said, \u2018You\u2019re going to get lost in this.\u2019
\nHe said, ‘You\u2019re going to drown in innocuous and dapple
\nand moonlight and languid and within.\u2019
\nShe understood why it didn\u2019t make sense to him;
\nhe was a thesaurus, he had an answer for everything,
\nhe had options running through him like creeks.
\nBut she was a dictionary, and she could see things.
\nShe knew about categories and families and groups,
\nknew that you couldn\u2019t always live a nice ending,
\nbut you could dismantle a bad one, find the roots and trace backwards with your fingertips.
\nBut this was not the sort of answer he was looking for, it was not neat or tidy or replaceable
\nwith similarly detached nouns or adjectives.
\nIt was drunk on the breath of her,
\nit was carved from that place at the back of her neck
\nthat he knew about, the exact shape of her baby finger curled under his chin.
\nShe wanted to say, \u2018I have gathered
\nthese moments like a bushel of roses, I have lain them in all the places you had not thought
\nto guard your skin.’ But he was counting things off
\non his fingers so she did not say anything,
\ndipped her hands back in the river, for a bit.
\nIt reminded her of the time he took her for a ride
\non his friend\u2019s motorcycle, how she leaned too far into the turns,
\nnearly toppled them. How she wrote a poem about it,
\nhow the wind chill snap licked at your neckline, the crevices filled with adrenaline,
\nbut he wouldn\u2019t read it because he was mad at her,
\nhe didn\u2019t understand why she did things.
\nAnd when he gave her back the poem and a part of her was happy,
\nshe wondered if she wasn\u2019t more in love with the words than the people who were attached to them,
\nand why she always leaned into the curve of a bad decision.
\nWhen he finished speaking
\nit was like the sound of wings folding, it was her breath in grade three when
\nthat boy used to chase her at recess,
\nwhen she ran and ran for what it felt like to be just ahead of the hands
\nthat were reaching for her, when she knew the point of the game
\nwas to let yourself get caught but she ran anyway
\nbecause why would you ever give up on that feeling?
\nWhen he asked her if she felt responsible for any of this, she wanted to say ‘I
\nwill climb back down the bank.
\nI will wade in past what is acceptable for lifeguards and young mothers,
\nI will bathe our memories in words like supple and lavender and lit.
\nI will lay them out on the shoreline, end to end, until they are soft like lily petals
\nand warm like the sun on your skin.’
\nBut she did not say these things because although they were beautiful
\nshe was not entirely sure if they were true.
\nWhat she really wanted to say was, ‘Don\u2019t you ever
\nwant to run around at recess?’<\/p>\n