Girls I Have Loved
You have loved lots of girls in the sweet long ago,
And each one has meant heaven to you.
Once in a wood, the moon sighed and wept paper tears, and the trees turned their roughhewn backs and refused to hear; the swallow and the dove and the nightingale ended their tune and fluttered soundlessly far away; my sadness was borne on the wind alone; and I suffered from its echo for many years hence. Its magic, like water nymphs and their futile games with poor shepherds on desolate mountain peaks, left me by and by, and a tragedy came of that love so tender, so deep, that came when it should not and left when it was most needed. Too late, perhaps, to dwell on that forlorn emptiness of words, a myriad of ice-tinged auras in a forest of cold, for what was lain down can also be trampled and forgotten, forever and forever.
She sat on the old swing on the veranda, my Daffodil: a glass of lemonade, a pasted-on smile, an old bonnet, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her yellow muslin dress. Sometimes it was blue chenille, but it was the yellow that I loved, for it seemed to stretch forever, a field of flowers that filled all of eternity with her once-innocence in the middle of that rustic and wild beauty � and her pale and dying face, her lifeblood draining away into a sudden collision of dry dust and rich earth. She was lost, it seemed, to decay and rot, for she had forsaken her love for a song, a song that she wished had never existed. It sang out, loud and clear, with remembrance in its notes, but in her ear they withered to their most ancient form: a cacophony of guilt, and of wrongness, and despicable shame. It was late and love was gone; and the moon-faced boy from behind the glass window waved a little wave and she whispered something softly that meant come back to me in the least provoking way she could. In that instance, in that little moment out of all the millions of others that had made his life, a sudden hope and joy leaped into his mind � but it was gone before he could speak; she had turned her face, and his words had become bitter ashes in his mouth, and his smiles came to fade in the sunlight, and the wind drowned his laughter, and his happiness was swallowed into the cold bosom of the night sky outside that window.
Many months ago � though it seems like years, and decades, but time flies by in the rising tide of my manhood � there once was goodness, and joy, and wonder, and the parties! There were sparklers and apple pie and frolicking on the lawn, and drinking games and footsie and tenderness among the leaves; melons and berries, cookies and cakes, pig-in-a-blanket and dancing, to be sure. One lucky couple were crowned king and queen, and one was her Oberon and the other his Titania; together, they ruled a fairy realm of great harvest and happiness extended, and the love they shared made them inseparable through the ages. How I wished for this glory among the bacchic feasts of our youth. And I dreamed for nights and days, and seconds and hours, and decades and aeons, and as long as I can remember � for Sally to rule with me as my love and my Queen. How I thrilled to her name as they rolled under my tongue and into the air! In the grey dawn, in chorus with the wild geese in the sky, oh Sally, I love you, oh Sally my dear, and I flew with these visions, strange and wonderful, of Sally and I.
In class and outside, I watched and I waited, for her dear voice to throw queries and answers, like airplanes and jets that flew over my head. And that day: her brown hair came flowing like water downstream; her arm jumped in excited convulsions; her corduroy knapsack flew open a bit; her neck in its softness twisted some length; and a single drop of madness floated down from her glass-green eyes to the table below. All this I soaked in, and all this I saw: I remember, it was raining � and then it was too late, for that Spell was broken, that Instance was passed, and her great Mysteries were public at last.
�Sally, my dear, where�s your mom and your dad?�
�I don�t know, teacher, but I think that they�re dead.�
I spoke up, I did, because injustice would not stand, and if she wouldn�t, then I would and propriety be damned. In silence they sat, with pencils in hand, and twiddling, and fiddling, and not looking � but they couldn�t help it. Tear two. My hand, and excuse me. There was no complaint, or rejoinder, or repartee, just an idle silence and a dip of the head, so I walked through the hallway, the driveway, and down to my car. The door I held open for her to get in, and she bent to become one with the coldness and staleness and loneliness of the seat � silent screams to leave her alone, but I was steadfast, and angry, and more so than most, for I loved her with a passion that would not let go.
There was a bustling rudeness in the rain and the after-school dither, and the blowing leaves and whispers of gossip knocked at the window and interrupted our silence and our thoughts; and the tightness clutched so deep that I couldn�t breathe, and with pain, I took her hand and squeezed it so softly. And where it had all been sad, and melancholy, and dying, it became different: warm, friendly, masterful. We hadn�t done anything, but everything had changed. Nothing mattered like it did before except for the desire to drive away from the lonely spot, and her quiet breathing, and the pouring rain � and the little odd rivulet on the windshield finally caught up with the others and was eaten up, to disappear into the deluge.
But those words! I had stood up in public for this girl that I knew, and they all acknowledged me as her protector with responsibilities of sorts, to love her and defend her, till death do us part. At my window each night for the rest of the winter, I�d blow a kiss to the night in the hope that it would come back again, and all through that year � as the ice drove furrows around my backyard, and the moon cast cold shadows onto my face, and the wind and the rain conspired against us to keep us inside � I loved her and courted her and created this fate: for she knew more than I about life in this place, and what was hers was hers and she could take it all back. For I came to see that amidst the pleasures of our idyll and for all that I loved, her inclination for Eros came at a cost: in the crease of her mouth as we kissed, some vengeance implied, and I was to become one with this.
And today, in the spring of our love: her plan, once fancy, now serious at best. I could not fathom its depth, so I sat at my window and watched for some expression that would reassure my heart, but her smile stayed deadly, as deadly as sin, and as much as I loved, I couldn�t help but cringe � at her Highness in yellow, lemonade in tow: a beauty among the madness, a daffodil among the barrens. Her smile, bitterness in tow, ended my reverie and shamed my heart, and the spark in my eyes sputtered out, for gone was my love to be replaced anew, with firebrands and pitchforks and the burning of pain. My heart had been stolen by a lover, a thief, who crept in the night and loved with her teeth; and for crumbs of her passions I became blind as a mole. I let the world pass me and truth fall unheard, and I blocked out the wailing that I still heard every night in those sad echoes that traveled the road: one from the basement, and from the floor above, where we had left them, then killed them and cleaned it all up.
My eyes traveled down the road in the back of this car; the jail wasn�t too far off from this bloody old place. There she sat on that porch, my sad Queen; we had loved much, and loved best, but my sacrifice was more. For in the end, it was bound to come out, our horrible sin. My love, bless her soul, couldn�t bear the thought of being locked up in jail, like her parents had been; who would beat her on on-days and do worse things on off, who took her quietness for granted, not knowing that she � in rage and in tears, on the morning of that day � would return every blow she had got, and leave a final remembrance of the life they had wrought in blood spattered slices on their front and their back. We cried when it was done, our love sealed with infamy, and this secret murderous life we put behind us until death do us part.
Months later, her quietness � it was all wrong. And then I knew. My life as it was, and hers as it was, was changed forever and ever, and when I asked her what she had done, she put down the phone and looked up at me. Time paused for a second: her flowing brown hair, her convulsed arm, her neck, its regal softness, and her glass green eyes, and the single drop of madness that fell to the floor. And for death I wished for our love was no more, and the police and the handcuffs and the soggy wet rain; another day of injustice just like the last. As I looked through the window of this patrol car, I became the wind, the trees and the moon � and paper tears fell where happiness had once been, and I retreated back into this cold shell, and those bitter ashes, and faded smiles, and tired love. Goodbye, I said, with my own little wave; and I return to that dream, where King Oberon and Queen Titania leave hand in hand, lovers forever and ever, with nothing to draw them apart.