Sunday, May 18, 2008

In a light breeze I stood and blew wishes for you off a handful of dandelions, hundreds of wishes all given to the wind to scatter and root themselves and bear fruit. Or at least, I tried to, but just as I closed my eyes the wind shifted and tossed all of those wishes for you back towards me, to get tangled in my hair and clothes and eyelashes, to fall behind. To turn out to be wishes for someone else, perhaps. I've been searching for them ever since, behind the wishes of other people, under their rocks, flowering below their seeds.

I'm not sure that you were listening, the day that I couldn't sleep because of Mercury. Mercury rotates three times every two orbits around the sun, and since its orbit is very elliptical the sun rises on one side, stops, goes back toward the horizon it came from, stops again, and then moves very quickly over the other horizon. Every day, if we were to count days by the passage of the sun rather than the rotation of the planet. The sun must be exhausted by its own indecision, not sure if it wants to rise or set and where, because Mercury is so close that the usual rules don't apply when it comes to orbits, elliptical or circular or otherwise. And all the while, Mercury continues to spin so, so fast.

It wasn't only because of Mercury that I couldn't sleep.

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