NATURE'S FIRST GREEN IS GOLD, HER HARDEST HUE TO HOLD. HER EARLY LEAF'S A FLOWER; BUT ONLY SO AN HOUR. THEN LEAF SUBSIDES TO LEAF.
Her mouth is salvation.
“Almost,” he says, in the voice of a wild thing. He cranes his mouth to her ear—his eyes are bright, more like the blue in fire then the sea. “There’s only one thing left.”
He supposes it is bold, to say; but he hopes the earnestness of his tone conveys not a demand, an ultimatum, but a desire. His voice comes out heady with it. And while she opens space, he steps forward to close it, delighted in the predatory glint to her eyes; the soft edge of their love is hardening, as steel does in fire, folded again and again over itself. He laughs. It is less nervous; it is more breathless.
“You can start,” he says, quietly. “By learning each of my tattoos, and I will kiss each feather of your wings and make constellations of the freckles beneath them—“
The rejection of that festival night seems to belong to another man. He is bold, now; nearly brazen. His tattoos, which typically glow metallic silver when the sun sets, continue to rage gold, gold, gold. The dark colour of her skin reflects it; absorbs it; and the light creates an alcove utterly private, beyond even the creek, and the birds, and the forest.
Perhaps they are both gods.
Orestes steps beside her, flanking; he runs his mouth along the arc of her neck, and then the slope of her shoulder. He admires her one white sock; the slight lightening of the black of her coat to rich, reddish brown. He noses her feathers, gestures her wing up.
“This, here,” he says, tracing the distinctive patterning of freckles against the white. “Looks like Cassiopeia. And this—like Orion. There, too, is Lyra, for the eagle carrying the lyre.” His voice drops. “But this one—“ and Orestes’s nose presses against a unique patterning, jagged, broken. “Looks like a Commander.”
Orestes has always been poetic, ornate; his words have been the closest way he can share his soul. Too often, however, Marisol has made him wordless. So that when he draws away it is to smile, shyly now, and say, in the words of Neruda, “Marisol—“ a pause. “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” As if it wasn't already implied.
“speaking" || @
"SO EDEN SANK TO GRIEF
SO DAWN GOES DOWN TO DAY
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY"
SO DAWN GOES DOWN TO DAY
NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY"
