again

Chopin: Nocturne 2 in E-flat major

What happens is keeping lists and making substitutions. Such that sometimes A can equal B. Stand in for B.

Finally, the fact remains that he speaks three or four languages and plays the piano.

Finally, the fact remains that you have a boyfriend.

Let me play something for you sometime.
All right, just come and get me.
Come now.
All right.
This is the deFalla I told you about.
...
This is the Chopin.
...
That's beautiful.

And then the way goodbyes happen, after two weeks (really?) of dinner together, right elbow touching left elbow, sometimes; remembering Venice; looking up to see him smiling with his eyes at the same ridiculousness. And the minutes in the gallery with the warm brown Steinway, where his fingers were perfect, warm machines.

There is a craving in my whole body for that music now.

In the end I am accustomed to the leaving. I write out of longing so often, but I had forgotten what it was like when it was raw.

Because from the first it was so kind and generous and lovely and alike, and now it is gone and despite "I would really like us to stay in touch" and "Don't forget to write," and "Visit Philadelphia any time," and "I always answer," I know there is nothing that binds here but memory, and that is a delicate strand.

The trills. The moon breaking the cedar grove.