Distanced

 

It would be so easy. To reach across the picnic blanket, to brush your hand.

It’s a hot day. There is no ice-cream van, no music from the bandstand. Some children splash and fish in the water, nearer to the ducks than to each other. The playground remains closed.

Our voices carry the forced jollity and lightness that seem necessary just now, while we all buck up and count our blessings and keep on keeping on. We say only the things we don’t mind others hearing, not the things we would say quietly if we were nestled into each other.

I watch your face as you speak, entranced by the movement of your jaw, the soft lines of your lips. I am suddenly grateful for contact lenses, without which you would be a blur.

The blanket is warm on my back and beneath it, the dry grass scratches at me. I feel everything. I am a pandemic princess on the pea. My every nerve is alert to the impossibility of your hands, your mouth.

I consider the extreme circumstances in which you might touch me. If I turned my ankle while we walked, would you drop to your knees and cup my foot in your hands? If I fell in the river, would you wade in and scoop me out? How long would I need to submerge my face in the cloudy water before you would drag me to the bank, hook your fingers inside my mouth, seal your lips to mine and breathe into me, press your rhythm into my heart?

I don’t do these things. I lie still, let the sun kiss me, let the breeze lift my hair. Touch you only with my eyes.

An invisible six-foot chaperone lies between us, a stretched-out body, inert, not breathing.