Tennae Maki
Carbon Dating
Parked in petrol stations, sitting in cars with open doors
Running down desert highways in trainers and blue jeans
Kicking dust into pools of gasoline.
Sipping on slurpees, beads of sweat still found dripping
down backs
A horizon line that is nothing but a mirage, the only thing
known is that it's sure to be of like colors. Ochre and red.
Even the clouds seem to be distilled in glass, filtering into
that grand mass.
The pay phone sitting at the side of the road,
the one worth the run, the one just beside the gas station's curb
It seems to predate the soil it sits upon.
When then folds into now and the wind carries distant messages
With arms over laid upon one another's shoulders, by way of distant memory,
two sisters did sit, with heads cradled in their hands. Just there, upon chairs,
at opposite sides of the ocean.
You told me you were going to the old stone church, the one across from the
square, the very one where we first met.
There was a breeze that day. You could feel the weight of the salt water, surly
from the cove that wasn't far away. I haven't felt one as heavy since.
Their necks and faces were wrapped in scarves, concealing the tears that crept
out, absorbing the salty wet and protecting the hard beaten air of the wind.