wgirlwind

he relished the flowering spikes the scalloped terraced stalks of his white sage as it went erect like a stroked cock

after he watered her

they hadnt a name for her yet

she deserved a name as many of their other plants had

but  it hadnt present itself

theyd know it when it came along

like Okchakko-iti their Colorado Blue Spruce  a Choctaw name for blue tree

Okchakko-itis name was given to her by his grrlfriend  she is Choctaw Sicilian and Black Irish 

shes dark  full-bodied  her mind even more full and precious

though even she hadnt felt their sages name

in due time  due time everything in its time

and in the meantime their sage grew fuller and taller  aggregating   an organic crystal

he handwatered her earlier that morning

and going out for his afternoon walk he departed the house through the side door which opened onto the milling fusion of their yard

he smiled at the sages erect nature

an oak sapling which grew near her was trying to emulate her stature

it shook its shoulders craned its neck Oh look at me  Look at me

Acorn he laughed youre growing into a fine being  Dont rush it Dont be eager

Acorn was another shoot he found and unearthed several winters back replanting him in their yard  he flourished in their mishmash vegetated yard

his daughters remarked more than once that he had an green thumb when it came to odd undomesticated plants and trees

he appreciated their compliments and told them so

they were after all siblings to the plants in the yard   his original seedlings  also flourishing

the afternoons walk took him and his reading  --  he went everywhere with a volume in his hands whether he chose to read or not  --  near the shop of a tobacconist  he suddenly looked up from his reading and recognised the terrain

that he had wandered nearby

he crossed the broad rural avenue to the tobacconists side of the street and entered a vacant lot whose corners begged attention with For Sale signs held on four-by-four posts pitching its Excellent Retail location

but unlike its enthusiastic signage it remained unspoiled except for the initial enticement the property graded to whet business appetites

overgrown with weeds its broken shale floor crumbled more and more with every passing year

as he crossed the lot he happened to look up out of his book and noticed at its far edge a nearly-invisible twisting

a small whirlwind birthing hinted at with rising dust and chaff of dried leaves their crumble from the deciduous trees near the road that he never cared to identify that burst into vibrant stokedstatic red and yellow flames in the Fall

persisting later than other trees until the leaves peeled and fell away

the whirlwind not six seven feet tall spun  then dissipated  and with each emanation neared him as he walked

he walked directly towards it as he was fond of things that revealed themselves to him and because they interested him

the traffic behind and beside him were oblivious  careless

much of what arrested his eye remained unseen by others

he wished it wasnt so because he believed in an intrigued and interested humankind

wishing never made anything so

but he preferred hope and optimism

his grrlfriend said she loved to walk with him because he constantly directed her attention to things she never would have seen -- which he didnt buy -- but she insisted and teased she wouldnt have realeyesed them without him

AwYour sweet hed say You trying to get in my pants

Im always trying to get in your pants but thats not why I say so  I say so because if I were by myself Id be distracted and wouldnt see them  Id miss them for the whirling inside my head

Youre scary observant babe

Not really sweetcheeks Im inquisitive when I dont have a book in my face

she laughed  I wouldnt recognise you if you didnt have a book in your face

then she laughed terribly hard Besides dont refute me  Its your gift and I love I cant say how much I love that you share it with me  And no  without you  I wouldnt see them or be thrilled by them as they appear to you and utterly thrill you

So  as you say  when you get a compliment Shaddup  And say thank you

Thank you

Youre welcome

the whirlwind subsided as they came within a football first down of each other  and as it waned it tacked to his right rattling dead weeds that flourished when the winter rains fell

Where are you going he whispered

it abated

in the time that would have befallen their intersection  invisible  he felt it slip around and tug at his right ankle

Ah Hello friend

spinning around his ankle it worked its way to his knee like an awkward hulahoop and up his thigh and entered the pantleg of his shorts caressing and fondling his cock and balls and then snake like a constrictor up around his belly breeze up to his shoulders and embrace his throat like a comforting woolen scarf

Hello  it replied

he stood fast  Are you well

Im ignored

Perhaps youre too subtle

You noticed

I didI would  But thats me

You  Id like you to walk with me

I cant walk like you walk

You can

I can  How

Eager

I am  I like that you believe I can walk with you  Though tell me I dont have to turn in mad circles  Because if I do Ill vomitId rather not walk

If you accede youll be as I  a being shaped inside turning wind

he smiled then laughed at his private joke  concurring

While I prefer to concur Ill accede  I get hung up on words

Im looking forward to hearing them inside me

if someone were watching they would have seen the wgirlwind materialise like a faint damascene fabric a greenbluish shimmering as if a scrap of the sky fell to earth and writhed in its separate birthing  it cocooned a nondescript man with a book in his hands as he stooped slipping a piece of paper in it to mark his place and laying it flat on a slice of cleaved shale swept clean by the turning atmosphere  the book trembled mildly agitated  then the man stood upright and dematerialised like the marine layer sapped by the suns thermal kiss and play  the whole of the man sifting like soft sand sieved by a childs beach toy  a painterly shadow  a stigma erased by a new lens

looking down at himself he watched his physicalness fade steal away like a desert mirage until in his eyes there was only the turning  a lazy listless vortex  and it dissipated

he was inside her

their language was no longer in English 

impulses  honey drips marveling in the sunlight  tides imperceptibly slipping over each other

inside  he  they   waft into traffic              

vehicles passed through them and they through the slippery aerodynamic sealed bodies  not blunt that they once were or open to the fresh air  music notes inside stared at them woefully in their hermetic captivity remembering before on hot summer days when they would have escaped through opened cranked-down windows or twisted wingvents

they curled over spoilers and under chassis then took their airy subterfuge into the darkening blue into the greenleafy crowns of trees that lined the avenue and into the throats of birds who inhaled and exhaled them in their caws and birdcalls

they misted with the expired vapours that radiated from all the plants and rotting things

they moved like exquisite sailing vessels in long deliberate thoughtful tacks

their language at once spoken unspoken  signedsighed

when she returned him

when he rematerialise

he seemed a vague shadow thrown by no entity  a shadow disguised as an acrobatic plastic bag roiling herkyjerky drifting in the sundown dusk the sky purple a shadow revealed bent at the hips retrieving something from a vacant lot  something  a book   then upright again    and material

flesh and blood and clothing and clutching the book to his breast that if he could see its printed words they would have made no sense to him inklines twentysix symbols if he could count  cowered parcels

then he was a figure walking somnolently splashed by headlights rouged by taillights   a curious absorbed figure

still hollow   curious because he was the only figure walking  walking  and occasionally stopping  absent  looking at things riders inside automobiles would never see as they sped by engulfed in atmospheres and scents remote and different from his

and step by step he became more conscious of things around him and step by step became more palpable  concrete  aggregating           

he congealed finally

as he found and entered his yard                        

his plants nodded to him in the breathless night painted by a slivered moon  illuminated by strange light and colours from within 

1441,  Twosday,  2  8. 16

1516,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  3  9. 16