it may be your nimble sense of smell that makes me a mountain, that troubles the electric space between us. where your eyes reach for the folds of my body, which is getting smaller as it gets colder, as the world turns its long face toward winter.
“what does it mean,” i said, “thick as thieves? i mean, what would you think if i said that?” you were bent in half at our translucent door, clumsily, squinting through a keyhole into everything you ever wanted.
“well, since you put it that way,” you mumbled, your face pressed up against the edge, the hard, clear boundary of the way in, or out, depending.
we were both quiet. me on one side, you on the other.
“i’m hungry,” i said. i leaned against the door like a lampshade. my heart was growling like a lawnmower. you moved aside like a pile of leaves, so it could growl around them. we were mulch-making. my good idea burst like a bulb, some smoke wafting from its charred socket. you looked at me with a long, green lawn in your eyes.
“it’s autumn,” you said. the leaves on the lawn said. your voice wanted to clink against my lips like a teaspoon at a glass. like we were making a toast. “it’s the end of something,” you said, “and the start of something else.” i wondered if your back would stay that way, bent. it wasn’t good. even though you’re so much taller, we were equally matched. we were standing on a level.
“i can’t,” i said. i was afraid of the words in my mouth. “i don’t know what to want.” it wasn’t going down right. i tried to sip it but gulped instead. hard swallow. something swooped. another petal fell. my belly felt sick inside, like i’d eaten too many sweets, or was about to.
you shook your head, but fixed me with the eyes. i watched you straighten out, then start to tip the other way. wish-heavy, that small seed growing something strange and wild in the thickets of your ribs. you couldn’t keep your balance. you wanted to stretch yourself over the mountain for me like a peppermint taffy.
you were bending over backwards.
my inside clock fluttered, then puttered and stuttered and stopped. you wanted me to pull a secret chain, to unwind us like a soft ball of yarn. the sky flashed a rosy golden. i mean, my cheeks did. my sticky heart. i started back up.
“what does it mean?” i said.
you tried to see past me. you couldn’t. thick as thieves; you didn’t know. you tried to see through me.
“no,” you said, “i didn’t.”
“WHAT DOES IT MEAN,” i hollered into the frozen hinge. it smelled like iron. too many irons. that cold metallic. nothing you’d want in your mouth. just in case your tongue got stuck. just in case your tongue got stuck.
“i didn’t,” you said. “i’m sorry.” a piece of paper slipped under the crack. a draft. a cold draft wafted against my feet, then up my leg, then up my skirt. your hands must have been freezing.
i unfolded the paper, careful not to slice anything.
“(As) Thick as thieves,” i read, “Informal. (Of two or more people): Very close or friendly; sharing secrets.” i groaned. i had a headache. i pressed my fingertips into my forehead like i was testing it for ripeness. all my soft places went belly-up, sighing. throwing me back, back, back to the beginning. a broken record. old love tunes, lullabies, church hymns. spells, curses. rebel anthems. war songs. all skipping together on a path to nowhere.
“Old English thicce, of Germanic origin,” you said, your voice muffled with all its upset pressing, “related to Dutch dik and German dick.”
“dick?” i said, “you can’t be serious.”
“no,” you said, “i can’t be.”
the door groaned under the weight of us both leaning our foreheads on it from opposite sides. you were heads, and i was tails, i thought. you were so much taller, and i was always tails. everyone would tell you to get out. that it was all in your--where is that, exactly? we were like mountains poking up above the shift of the weather. you cut to a sudden silence, like books do when our eyes startle away from them. i looked out the window, saw a bruise-colored cloud chase a cloud-colored cloud like a cat chasing its tail, saw the whole sweeping world as the negative space around us. maybe you are heads, i thought, and i am clouds.
“maybe you are,” you said. you sounded hollow, almost over it, your voice’s leaves crisping on the long, dark tree of your throat. this is where the root rots, i thought. this is why we can’t move without making sound. you nodded, sorry, soundless, and were gone.
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