The Orchid & the House

Being with her, the nights the two of you danced on the back patio, the accidental knocking over of the potted orchid plant laying in a cracked jar at your feet. All because of the red wine.

How both of you laughed and ignored the whole thing in the carelessness of the moment, flaws at the exposed brown roots, the broken stem, the flower left beaming at your feet as you danced in front of it like street performers.

Then the crack of clay shards and dirt beneath your hard loafers while spinning her.

Somehow, she remembers you this way.

You purchase the house and the patio, the arch lattice behind spoken vows, a trestle over the bridge from the wedding photos. Oak furniture your grandfather gives you.

He sands and mends, coughing with the dust in his workshop forever.

Moments like this pass like water through the fingers, a morning splash of tap water to the face helps you remember. Later that day, it’s the sunset closing in on the beach. Certain things about yourself, the ones you couldn’t grasp then, remain a mystery and pass, too.

The weight of what you meant to her.

They say the wind bends beach grass to its hollow center, as it does the valleys through the mountains, the softness of hair in the breeze, the smile of her head bent back as you dipped her, a glass of red wine in one hand.

She did not know what would happen next. And out of all of the infinite timelines left on earth, this is the one in which somehow you both shine.