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The sculptor’s pants were brown, double knee, with dark brassy rivets and worn in pockets. It might have been the first time I recall seeing a raw hem that wasn’t butchered and thrown in the washer the night prior. The cut was considered; he was on the shorter side.
From the shins of the pants to the lower thigh, the surface was covered in paint, speckled with flecks of white, blue, red, yellow, and something that looked like ink or oil after going through a wash and binding to the fabric.
There were brush strokes, paint splatters, drops here and there. He wore them all the time, as if to remind me he was a sculptor, he worked for an artist, and he wasn’t ready for anything serious. He would only see me late at night, after finishing up at the studio.
We met one time outside of his house, or mine, at a restaurant in Chinatown for dim sum. He ordered us several different chive dumplings; shrimp and chives, pork and chives, chicken and chives, and with every basket, he asked the waiter, Are these chives or is this spinach? I’m allergic to spinach. Other than in the spring rolls, there was not a single dumpling which contained spinach. He wore a striped shirt with holes in it and the brown, worn-in pants. His shoes were hi-tech.
I hate to admit it, but he was ahead of my time.
I thought once or twice about taking off with those pants, on one of the mornings he left me alone in his Pilsen apartment to go to the studio, but he rarely left home without them. On the one occasion he did leave me alone with his brown, painted pants, I found another woman’s bralette tangled up in the sheets we’d been sleeping in the night before.
I wanted to strangle him, but he would have been into it. I wanted to send a picture of the evidence to him and see what he had to say for himself, but I knew he wouldn’t have said anything at all, not until he was ready to see me again in several weeks, and it would have been as if nothing had occurred, as if the bra was his and he wasn’t sure why I cared.
I thought very seriously about leaving the gas burner on when I left, but then I thought of his roommate Caleb who I might want to date later on.
Instead, I made his bed, as usual, even going so far as to straighten out the duvet inside its cover, and brought his cups to the sink. Before I left, I folded his clothes from the night before and set them at the corner of his bed, the brown pants at the bottom with another tattered t-shirt folded on top. I watered his plants, and I remembered to twist the lock on the door behind me.
Over a year later, on Valentine’s Day, I asked him over to my studio apartment. Don’t ask me why. He went straight to my fridge, which was mostly empty, and told me I needed to eat more. The next morning, after everything, he kissed me and asked to see me again, soon. Instead of answering, I closed my eyes and pretended not to hear. I’d never experienced him so utterly speechless.
Eventually, I began to doze off, falling half asleep to the sound of soft footsteps, then the opening and closing of the solid oak door.
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Poetry practice - February
I wanted
for what? I can’t say
What I know
is that space
between your shoulders
never felt
so sweet
Listen while you read
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