Stars Coming Loose (Dreamscape Series #2)

There was a rectangle of turquoise
holding still in all that black desert,
a sunken jewel box
left open at midnight,
and then there was you in it.

Nothing asked anything of us.

Not the citrus trees somewhere nearby,
their fruit glowing faintly like moons.
Not the coyotes,
laughing in the dark
like women in the next room
with all the good gossip.
Not the moths drifting over the water
like ash from a glamorous fire.
Not the white horse moving through the dark
with its impossible patience,
as if the whole desert had imagined it
just to prove it still could.

The pool reflected a different sky
than the one above it.

Overhead, the stars were sharp and white,
ordinary as far as stars go.
But the ones below us
were greener at the edges,
stitched into constellations
no one had ever earned the right to name.

You were already there,
elbows hooked over the side,
blonde hair wet and slipping into your eyes,
tattoos moving under the surface
like they were trying to leave your body
and become fish.

The light caught in your hair strangely.
It did not stay put.
It gathered there,
small and silver,
and every time you turned your head
another star slid loose from it
and opened in the water.

I stood there too long.
You let me.

That was one of your quieter talents.

Nothing asked anything of us.
The pool did not beg.
It opened.

So I slid in,
dark hair slicking back,
my kaleidoscope eyes breaking
into green and gold tiles,
my own tattoos wavering over me
like the body had become
a language made entirely of water.

The shallow end turned us into mosaics.

Blue at the ribs.
Silver at the shoulders.
Our bodies cut into pieces of light
and fitted back together
a little wrong,
a little holier.

The desert let us have this.

A blue wound in the earth.
A lit mouth.
A private little sea
the desert had agreed not to touch.

Nearby,
two white towels folded like doves.
Your sunglasses at midnight,
black and useless and perfect,
resting on the concrete
like a joke with excellent bone structure.

You drifted toward me
in the lazy guilty way
people do
when they want something badly
but still want to be thought innocent.

I pretended not to notice.
This was a lie
we both respected for as long as possible.

Above the surface,
we kept our manners.

Below it,
your hand at my waist
had already stopped pretending.

The whole pool brightened
when your fingers met me there.

The tiles beneath us rearranged themselves
into flowers, mouths, teeth,
small blue warnings.
A jellyfish made of chlorine light
bloomed once at our knees
and drifted away like it knew better
than to stay for the rest.

Nothing asked anything of us
except closeness,
and even that
was asked like a favor.

The water kept returning us
to each other.

Every time we drifted apart,
it gathered at our hips
and brought us back
with the smug little confidence
of something that had already decided.

Your blonde hair kept slipping over your shoulders,
dragging stars loose into the pool.
I pushed it back once,
then again,
and each time
more light came free of it,
small silver things
opening around us in the blue
as if your body could not quite help
making a sky wherever it went.

My brunette hair clung wet
to the back of my neck.
You put your hand there once,
lightly,
and the false constellations below us
broke apart and re-formed.

That did something immediate
and humiliating
to the whole arrangement of me.

The moths kept falling through the motel-colored dark.
The citrus moons watched from the trees.
The white horse moved once between the palms,
pale as a thought too strange
to belong to either of us.

Nothing asked anything of us.

Not the stars breeding in the deep end.
Not the translucent little creatures
drifting through the water like thoughts
we were both trying not to think.
Not the ladder,
which had somehow grown extra rungs
as if leaving had become
a more complicated proposition.

When I kissed you,
the pool held still.

Your mouth warm
in all that diluted sapphire.
My hands on your shoulders.
Your tattoos slick beneath my palms,
dark as weather maps.
The surface staying polite
while everything filthy about us
happened below the waterline first.

You kissed like someone
who understood pacing.
Like someone
who knew exactly where the cliff was
and wanted me right at the lip of it,
panting, grateful,
still able to say yes.

Your hand low on my back.
Mine slipping under the blue
to learn you more honestly.
The water refusing the cool
everywhere you touched me.

It would not cool.

Not at my waist.
Not behind my knees.
Not at the back of my neck
where your hand stayed
like it had been assigned there
by some higher power
with excellent taste.

The reflected sky below us
went liquid and wrong
when your teeth found my lower lip.

Not hard.
Not gentle either.
Just enough
to put heat in my knees,
to make the tiles below us
rearrange themselves again
into fish, flowers, ribs,
things the body recognized
before the mind could call them by name.

After that,
everything got stranger.

The jellyfish bloomed wider.
The deep end kept extra stars for us.
Your blue eyes went nearly black.
My own gaze broke and reassembled
around your face
in little wet fragments.
The water around our bodies
turned brighter than the rest of the pool,
as if even chlorine
could be made indecent
with enough attention.

The desert let us have this.

My mouth at your shoulder.
Your teeth at my lip.
Your hand learning my waist
like it had rights there.
My thumb finding the place under your ribs
that made your whole body
give me the smallest, most dangerous answer.

Above us,
the palms rattled like dry bones.
Below us,
silver fish made of light
slipped between our legs
and vanished.

Nothing asked anything of us.
Not time.
Not history.
Only the blue.
Only your body moving toward mine
as if wanting could be simple.

When we climbed out,
the ladder had the right number of rungs again.

I did not trust that at all.

Water fell from us in silver threads.
The towels waited, folded like doves.
Your sunglasses still black and stupid and perfect.
The citrus moons still glowing.
The white horse gone.
The jellyfish gone.
The extra stars gone.

Only the pool remained,
quiet as a secret,
holding that other sky in its mouth.

And I thought,
with the full sincerity
of a woman about to ruin herself gladly,

If there is a god in California,
it is not a man.

It is warm water at midnight.
It is motel pink in chlorine blue.
It is stars coming loose
from a blonde’s wet hair.
It is one impossible rectangle
holding still in all that black desert.
It is the mercy
of being gathered back into yourself.
It is one body looking at another
like the night got something right.