Spring 2015
“ Herz. ”
His eyes blinked like innocent organs, and Cleopatra could see the sweat under them, the beads
only a fool would mistake for tears.
“ Serce, ” she gasped.
“I can’t hear you.”
“
,” she cried.
“It’s my ears, sweetie,” he explained, “all that loud music when I was a kid.”
“Heart! Heart! Heart!” she screamed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, grinning a what-can-you-do grin, “but I can’t make out what you’re saying.”
I love you, she thought, but feared he wouldn’t understand the words, not one of them: not
the “I”, not the “love”, and not the “you”; she feared this so much—and she knew that her own heart
(which is of course just a part of the head, or soul, but deserves a name of its own—however we spell
or say it) risked breaking into a jumbled, fragmented, yearning mess—that she grabbed his hand and
stabbed his palm with her pen, stabbed it again and again, and then closed his fingers into a fist.
Surprised, and with a look of indulgent amusement on his face, Remi moved her message
through the air, moved it slowly, as if whatever language she had written were precious cargo, a
promised entertainment, a mystery.
Holding his hand in front of his face, cocked near the window so Cleopatra could see, he opened
his fist, but the heat and sweat had already rendered the letters illegible.
Remi shrugged his shoulders; his wife’s heart broke; the young, handsome woman didn’t notice
a thing; the desperate train rushed on, a chaser.
###
Art Title: Bleeding Heart, Technique: Watercolour and Ink, Artist: Jane Burn
The Linnet's Wings