from the artist formerly known as –Anon. Nod to Victoria, Jeffrey.

Sands quicken toward the Day of Hearts. Your indulgence, then, for a brief tale of heart’s intent. A gesture. New beginnings.

Upon time once, this small cafe, a beautiful Gemini suddenly silent. Slender finger tracing trine . . . between two cappuccinos.

His Venus, her Moon.

The Wall

On his birthday, Danny rode at midnight. The broad hilltop summit, past mansions, overhanging trees, shadow-carved swaths across moonlit lanes.

November. Two and a half months since Elyce walked. He could sleep now one night in three.

So he biked all night down dimly lit streets, long, twisted routes that vanished by day. Only a mirror of tangled thoughts. Dark labyrinth, the great, sleeping city.

But his questions were real, hard and unyielding as the pace he now kept, alone in the dark, even in the rain.

–Are you going to come back?
–Have you found someone new?
–Can I have another chance?

Miles upon mountains now rose in between, but maybe she could hear him ask. Maybe she could read his mind.

Cobblestone street, crumbling sandstone. A demolished church wall. He pulled in by the graffiti–swirling scrolls sliced by moonshadow, a night bird in flight.

Over time, messages were left in the cracks, prayers and notes for loved ones. A photographer told Elyce about it, and she dragged a grumbling Danny one night for after-dinner show and tell.

–Must be for people without email or cell.

She poked his ribs.

–Where’s your sense of romance?
–Remember Padua?

Shooting in Italy after they met, she’d taken a weekend, the long route from Venice to the Basilica of St. Anthony. A Cancer Moon, she followed tradition, murmuring prayer, scribbling it on his business card. Pressing palm and prayer against the tomb. Folding, slipping it into a grey, granite crevice.

Elyce dreamt that night, asleep on the boat back to Venice. She and Danny knew each other in previous lives. Captain in service to the Catholic King, truly he loved her, a lady in the Spanish court. So she pleaded before he embarked to the New World.

–Journey to Padua, dear heart, kneel before the tomb of St. Anthony. Only your prayer will ensure our reunion.

In her dream, he does pilgrimage, though later, half a world away, he’s nearly killed. But he returns and they marry, just as she awakens on the ferry from Lido.

At mention of Padua that night at the wall, he dropped her hand, mind wandering.

–You dreamt of the Conquest. What if I was wounded by an ancestor? Amazing, no?

She grabbed his arm–you have to leave the law, all the winning and losing is bad for your heart. It’s in the stars.

–Then maybe you shouldn’t be with a public defender. And I’m not having a heart attack, thank you.

She said that wasn’t what she meant.

All these moments passed now, watching love flicker in moonlight like an old black and white movie.

Shaking his head, he rolled forward, fingering scrawl, faded mural. A man in blue tunic, hanging upside down by one foot, leg crossed behind the knee, yellow nimbus about his head.

Rush of wings overhead.

Goosebumps.
Whirling.
Peering into darkness.

Corner market, red neon sputtering, TIME — TIME
wind rising, trees whispering.

He looked back, the hanged man’s Mona Lisa smile, as if reading his mind.

Elyce said he always kept important questions to himself, as if expecting her to read his mind.

Patting pockets–no paper, no pencil or pen. He blinked back a tear, breathing words on his fingertips.

Pressing them over a crack in the hanged man’s face.

Somewhere in cool moonlight, a bird began to call.

#

Eyes shining, she looked up and reached across the stars, a cafe table, to take his hand.

–For Annie

that didn’t happen on wednesday. wtf?!?!?!

aquarius is abso my favorite sign.

i have aquarius cusp 7th…house is empty tho thankgod. aint nobodeh home. leo rising but for me sounds like itll be a year of same old SAME old.

Hey, good luck with that, Jeffrey.

Maybe you should have a “report back” post sometime after the eclipse?

Oh well, the eclipse doesn’t set off anything in my chart and is in the fourth house anyway, so I don’t think that’s changing any time soon.