It's Still Life

A Stream of Consciousness on a Tuesday Afternoon

Rain arrived exactly on cue today,
like a polite actor entering stage left at the BBC’s command —
three o’clock,
said the weatherman,
and at three o’clock the sky obliged for precisely five minutes,
just enough to silver the windows,
just enough to make the world smell briefly of wet pavement and leaves,
just enough for Peder to fall asleep in the chair.

He sleeps with complete faith in the universe.
Head tipped back at impossible angles,
mouth slightly open,
arms folded as though he has merely paused between thoughts.
Rain sends him to sleep.
Sunshine sends him to sleep.
Thunder could drag its furniture across the heavens
and he would continue snoring peacefully through the apocalypse.

If I touch his shoulder to save his neck,
he wakes like a man hauled suddenly from the seabed.
“What did you say?”
Nothing, darling.
Only gravity speaking.

I envy this talent.
I cannot even survive my own snoring.
The smallest betrayal from my own lungs
wakes me instantly,
while he can sleep inside a brass band
rolling downhill in a biscuit tin.

Above me now,
the gulls are wheeling over the conservatory roof,
their shadows skimming the glass like thrown cards.
Twelve of them at one count.
Not fishing,
not searching,
just riding the updrafts inland because the sea is in one of its moods again.
Storm water out over the Channel.
Whitecaps.
Wind worrying the Brighton coast.
And here they are instead,
hovering over Sussex gardens and washing lines,
crying like old women arguing at a market.

The rain has already stopped.
The windows are drying in streaks.
Peder’s head has tilted another dangerous inch toward his shoulder.
And overhead the gulls keep circling,
held aloft by invisible things,
which, I suppose,
is true of most marriages,
most weather,
and most afternoons worth remembering.