The News in Sunday Morning's Room

You start with the surface.

Grecian eyes, tooled away centuries ago by masters of their craft; artisans awaiting just the right woman worthy of their work. They’re now socketed centerpieces of a visage organized by architects building off flawless designs. Cheekbones bouncing light, blushing from your forwardness, highlight her fearful symmetry. Her roaring bob spins violently with the turn of her head, imitating a Mediterranean night’s shade and daunting nature. It frames her masterpiece; her impossibly remarkable face that before tonight, only dreams had conceived.

Let the marriage die. You knew her once as a creation of gods so bent on beauty that they deprived her of humanity. The gods bore into her mind that no cost could be too high to protect what so many had suffered to shape, sculpt, and erect. A self-defense device lie deeply imbued: avoid all abuse to her immaculate figure. Vanity, sans sanity.

Move in with her twenty-seven dates, public outings, picnics, and parent meetings later. You lie with her on a Sunday, happily entangled on a tiny mattress in the room with a view; one that begs and pleads to be filled with furniture.

If I told you ‘I love you,’ you wouldn’t believe me, would you?

Her voice is a choir; mezzo-sopranos in harmony, smooth as whiskey, hypnotic in delivery. Her “good morning” is a concise vocal concerto that, when coupled with the flash of her eye bulbs, is akin to a jazz piece. An audiovisual inspiration.

I could never believe it, You whisper without doubt.

That’s why I love you, You hear through closed eyes.

Her voice’s conductor composes those three words so they’ll reverberate in your head’s echoing halls ‘til the crescendo collapses. Her white tank-top of purity clings only half as tightly as your arms around her. The Sunday morning light crawls onto you two, as you do unto her.

You go on the first date.

She’s an Egyptian queen revived for your marveling while you share time in fine Italian dining. She shines for you, elaborating on her hopes and list of aspirations as her chins sits upon her limp wrist. Her lips press inward, instinctually. You quell your stutter when she wants to know all about your life and your hopes. Everything you tell her is given full attention, from your miseries to your gratitude to all those who waited, prayed, as you squandered months of life and possibilities in half-way homes and that one clinic that causes you to cringe.

She sympathizes, smiling sublime comfort that soothes old wounds.

You were a father for 77 hours. She tells you afterward of her decision, with emphasis on her. Her bob becomes the bordering to a shimmering TV set turned to the devastating live news announcement; a close-up of a gorgeous, remorseless, anchor, delivering the details of death in taciturn tedium, as if it were the grocery list being read. When news of a dead child is told to the tune of a Charlie Parker set, with such a luminous being the source of the broadcast, you don’t know how to react. You leave to find a way, but only uncover a six-iron; it allows for a voluminous and crashing catharsis, all but ruining the walls of Sunday morning’s room. She tries to calm you down. Amid your irritating glaze of tears, your misplaced rage, you don’t see her in time to halt your broken-hearted swing.

The damage entails a coincidental twenty-seven stitches.

You ask for her name, cocking your head pointlessly, while your winning grin saves you.

Elizabeth, Her symphony says.

Her skin is soft to the eye’s touch; an unblemished milky landscape untarnished by man’s explorations, but demanding to be appreciated. You buy her a Manhattan that’ll sit unsipped. Her hand becomes your fingers’ first of many adventures on her surface. It feels like the fine side of satin, as suspected.

You find her in the bedroom. She doesn’t say sorry, and neither do you. Allowing her defenses to fall, she sheaths her dagger, letting you sidle beside her. You share a short time seeing your different lives split off and shatter outside Future’s frosted window. You plainly explain, You don’t have to go.

Affections are shown just once more, before she storms out the door. Without hearing remorse sung for you by her chorus, your life becomes punctuated by your old haunts and failings. Dirty alleys drenched in fluorescence: stage lights to your horrorshow. Your child’s now but a blip in your mind, Imagination’s cradle rocking it slow, never to know anything but its father’s mental confines. Stolen life defines it, courtesy of a mother unprepared and unreasonable, blessed with beauty, but not ready to wreck it. The woman of your dreams came to life and ruined it.

Sunday morning leaves for the afternoon shift. Locked in tight, two lovers exist before their rift. A draft drifts in. A chill spills inside, but you refuse to shift or make the lunge for the blanket on the floor.

You wouldn’t lift a lash.

The twin mattress, a purchase of thrift with disregard to space is the lovers’ last place where they embraced love’s gift.