We were off the road. The trees were on the left. We were to the right of them. “You might want to stay on the road,” I said. “I am on the road,” you said. “No. You’re not.” And then we began to fall. You turned toward me. I said, “Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter. Our love will last forever.” You moved closer. “A kiss before dying?” you asked. And then we ran quickly to the water because our feet were on fire. When we dove into it the cold shocked us at first, but then we got used to it and we went out farther into it, deeper, past the sand bar and into water of a different shade. I tried to stay below the surface for as long as I could, to meet the challenge without a flinch and to think nothing of breath or light. I tried to be as a bottom creature, walking in that sand without a care or worry other than a next meal or the escape from the mouth of some other creature. I tried, but I failed. My chest got tighter and heavier, yet this strange weight forced me up rather than down. There was nothing to do about it. My pain increased. And I sought to free myself from the agony: that grip. I went up against my will, my wishes – my feet as flippers pushing off a locker of stone. Then the light blinded me for a moment, but I adjusted. The pain had quickly gone; nothing of it, not even its memory, remained.

 

Copyright © Dennis Barone, 2007.

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Dennis Barone is Professor of English at St Joseph College, West Hartford, Connecticut. His most recent publications are The Walls of Circumstance (Avec Books, 2004), and God’s Whisper (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005).