O Filthy Pilgrim

"You remember them thoroughbreds at your brother's wedding? Those big glossy bays?"

He looked over, from looking out the window, from watching the naked rows of dirt fail to swell into a garden. His wife was sitting up in bed. For the first time in awhile, which was good. It was good seeing that. He could feel her collecting pieces of him and that was almost good too: The dirt in his jeans, the dirt in his nails.

"We took em down that backroad to your old schoolteacher's. The one you were all sweet on." She smiled, bright and sudden, like a fresh book of matches. "Oh, now, it's alright! Don't you look all shamed, now." He couldn't help looking down at his jeans.

"Don't you look all ashamed. You were a boy, after all. And she was a nice lady when you introduced us. You remember that?"

He nodded.

"You remember?"

"I remember."

"But your brother's wedding-- we had them thoroughbreds. The bays. They were the prettiest color. You remember the color of them?"

He nodded."

"Like clean pennies underwater." She was looking upwards, and licking her lips. Like she had eaten the copper straight out of the thought, like she would have seconds if she could ask. "Like the ones people throw in wishing fountains. You remember? The color of them?"

"I remember." He began peeling the skin and soil from around his nails.

"And we took on down that backroad, the one to your old schoolteacher's, and we just... we just let them bays just go. Just cut em loose. With our heels down and leaned in and they took off with us." She licked her lips again, and looked at him. "You remember that?"

"I remember that."

"We had em wide open, didn't we?"

He nodded, because they had. The bays had gone wide open down that backroad, all thunder and thrash and dirt and dumb impact, lungs dragging whiff and snort and bodies heaving work and jerk, power things, fear things: hot-eyed. Him damn near killing himself on a sycamore branch, and her latenight tobacco hair flying up and away like shaken champagne, laughing, so far up the road, so far way up ahead of him: That laugh high and steamy and anxious like a teakettle snuck into the woodwinds. Porcelain, eggshell, kaleidoscope, just wonderful.

"You remember that?"

He nodded and stood up.

Her glass of water was empty, and with it being 3 o'clock she needed her 3 o'clock medicine. And so he would get her the water to take it. And when he reached for her glass she reached out and touched him on his filthy wrist, and the both of them looked at each other.

"Hey, now..." She licked her lips, and smiled. "You remember them thoroughbreds? At your brother's wedding?"

He was a hooked carp: choking on something small and metal, way back in the grate of his neck. Water filling his nose like something spilled: something warm. "I remember."

"You remember? Them big shiny bays?"

"Sure do."

"We had em wide open, didn't we?"

"Sure did."