Confidential
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
"This is the third physical therapist you dumped, Greg!"
"Richardson is an idiot!"
"You haven't completed ONE session with any of these therapists! You need their help—and you haven't even gone to see your psychiatrist…"
"I'm not talking to some shrink about this!"
"You have to!"
"I wouldn't have to if I hadn't made you my medical proxy!"
A gasp. A sharp slap. The slamming of the door.
vvv
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
"You're packed."
"I'm packed." A sigh.
"Something you want to tell me?"
"I can't take this anymore…"
"So you're leaving me—just like this?"
"I got another position in New York…"
"You resigned while I was out having beer with Wilson at the bar three weeks ago."
The sound of a car horn, insistent and irritating.
"Goodbye, Greg."
vvv
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
"You look good, Stacy."
"Thank you. So, how's marriage this time around?"
Uncomfortable shifting of cotton pants against leather seat.
"Julie and I—have our moments."
"Oh—I shouldn't have pried..."
"No—that's ok. Julie and I married on the spur of the moment—three weeks after we first met. Not enough to know your partner that well."
A soft laugh, tinged with regret.
"So, tell me about Mark—"
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You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
"Why do you have to work at the hospital for? You have your practice in Short Hills…"
"I want to be here for you while you're taking your physical therapy, Mark."
"Is it really for me, Stacy?" The squeak of rubber wheels against the linoleum.
"Or is it for him?"
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It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
The rustle of paper.
"Where's this place? I've never heard of it."
"It's five miles away from the high school; now that you're getting better and that the school's allowing you to work part-time, Cuddy recommended us to Dr. Reedley at the Short Hills Physical Therapy Center. We can go back home now."
A pause.
"What's wrong, honey?"
A sharp intake of breath.
"Nothing, baby."
A kiss.
"Absolutely nothing."
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The door leading to the rooftop opens with a creak. The click of heels. A soft voice, edged with annoyance over an earlier transgression.
"I got your page, House. What's wrong?"
A pause. The scraping sound of jeans over concrete. Uneven steps punctuated by the thump of rubber over rough concrete. The click of heels. A soft thump on metal door.
"This is."
The meeting of lips on lips. The sound of wood meeting concrete floor.
"Although it does feel right."
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And now you're mine. Rest with your dream in my dream.
Love and pain and work should all sleep, now.
The night turns on its invisible wheels,
and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber.
vvv
Lines are from the following poems, by Pablo Neruda.
Tonight I write the saddest lines.
A Song of Despair
Sonnet LXXXI