In which our heroine has No Words.

It's the rainy season again. It came rather abruptly, ending a long, (mostly) warm sunshine of stooping, sunbathing, and drinks on roofs both foreign and familiar.

You drew back the curtains and asked me if I wanted to go dance in the rain.

Your exact words.

"On the street or on the roof?"

So in a change of your clothes, bare feet in worn sneakers, we took the stairs up the third floor, hand in hand. The window to the fire escape at the end of the hall. A glance over my shoulder, just to see if you were still with me, and I pushed with a flourish, in boxers and a thin cotton Tour de France shirt, hopping up the wet steel rungs. I waited for you. You came, towel wrapped around bare shoulders to huddle beneath the solar panels.

Too windy. The trees surrounding your house bend beneath the weight of the wind while rain drops hurtle from the sky.

Shh.

And we listened.

All I could really hear was the rush of wind and rain and the feel of you against me from the rain and the words of Brian Andreas

No Words by Brian Andreas

I read once that the
Ancient Egyptians had
fifty words for sand

& the Eskimos had a
hundred words for snow

I wish I had
a thousand words
for love.

But all that comes
to mind is the way
you move against me
while you sleep

& there are no words for that.

As we clambered back down, I hear you attempting to convince yourself of an elsewhere as I slide back into the house. "Summer in Las Vegas. Summer in Las Vegas!"

To be fair, I warned you to bring a jacket.

Mother Nature is not benevolent to nudity in fall.

You are soft. You are warm. I smell like you. It is raining. It is cold outside.

But here, I am happy.

"That makes two of us."