Gloria

Gloria was your name, is your name, will be your name.

***

Dear Gloria,

You had me going so that I didn't know how to stay still.  Legs swung off the tailgate like a body hung and shaken by the wind.  What was that place?  Looking at your hair as it covered your eyes, I saw that you didn't want me to see.  You were dying.  But aren't we all in some stage of death, daily, hourly, moment-arily?  And when it does come to a close, is there a purpose anymore?  Of course, I didn't ask you that, just as you, in your final weeks, didn't tell me you were afraid, that you couldn't stand the sight of me, that you would have rather we both turned away before the whole thing got ugly.  I listened to your breathing, harsh and troubled as you exhaled.  We were sitting on the edge of this tailgate looking out over the ocean, high up on a cliff, waves crashing under our feet.  One of us was ready to die while the other, swinging her legs, hoped for a miracle.  It's cruel how some creatures get more time on this earth than others.  I put my arms around you and nestled my face into your fur.  We promised to meet again.  You whimpered and licked my face as the cool evening air rushed against our backs.

***

I fell in love with you the moment I found that you could talk underwater.  I was born underwater and never surfaced.  It was important, though difficult to find others willing to communicate with me, to chance opening their mouths even a moment to release a sound.  They feared, and rightfully so, the vast expanse of liquid depth, the dark blue deep, the weight of meta-living, that would fill them so completely that they would, undoubtedly, be inseparable from their watery context.  Most won't choose this life, but you, you and me, we're hopelessly sunk, so embedded in the metaphor that there would be no returning to the surface.  And who would want to return?  How we revel in our octopus' garden, swimming in and out of stone castles on the sea floor. 

***

Whose memories am I writing?  Whose stories?  Mine?  Another mine?  Gloria, who are you?