by Lyndon German
It was my mistake, thinking genius was associated with trade or talent. That night I stumbled upon a strange house with a red light, I assumed a villain dwelled here. When in fact, after sitting on a couch of some unknown origin, I learned the light was red only because they were out of blue light bulbs, and later, after my expectations went limp, how disappointed I would be if the sky wasn’t blue.
All at once I had walked into some collective place–murals were being painted piece by piece by each individual and tea, drowned with whisky, was being drunk. The four or five men stopped smoking and writing notes and came to notice me. I, who was only a friend of a potential conquest, was not seen as one of them, but sat and talked among them anyway.
Paul and the Gospel and the word Lord were thrown out and questioned, and I gave them my beliefs. Then the sea and the sky, and some old theory with which we quickly dispensed. And I told of how I came to be there. The traveler, who had come across this house by circumstance.
It was late when the mood hit. I realized how warm my thigh was next to yours. Unknowingly, I slid forward to gather more tension. (I wouldn’t have the pleasure of having you tonight but the thought kept me warm enough.) But before I could rot in the thought of this exchange, solace for shelter, I was interrupted.
The youngest man had some wild robe or dress around his waist, and hair curled upward and angelic like a jaw once copied from the Greeks by the Romans. I can’t remember his name, but he became Paul to me. And as Paul rose, we all rose, and before I caught fire: misplaced appendages. I was pushed out into the cold and we walked together toward the river.
We arrived shortly after I lost all thoughts of you. And under the moon the river was clear, and everything was together. Sitting in the grass near the bleached sand, I felt like part of the land, the sea and the sky–all the same. The silence of the night bent and Paul rose again. And we all rose.
He undressed and dove headfirst in to the water. Together with the water, the waves became lost in his flesh, and I was enthralled with feeling. Soon everyone was removing their covers and wrapped with the cold wind before plunging into the water. Arms and legs thrown around carelessly and stiff bones and torn flesh gone with the waves.
There I stood nude and freezing. Watching men move downstream and you with them: watching your tits move through each ripple and wave, all my thoughts of warmth were lost standing there, undone. My thighs ached with the stern scratches of stems.