between index and thumb

she got her fix
at the airport terminal
at LAX,
right up front
with all the other passengers
who were patiently waiting
for their way out.

low clouds choked the view from outside
the sweeping windows.
blue fairy lights winked
on the runway.
there were several people smoking
cigarettes outside on the platform. there was
dotted confusion as the display
read: DELAY.

she tore into her pocket
and removed a pressed flower,
dry and brittle and two shades
lighter than it was when it was alive.
she blinked twice
as she held it
between index and thumb,
cautiously remembering
who it had come from.

he had been a boy then,
but she saw him as a man now
who watched the flower grow
with water and sun and soil
and a smile just before he
planted it.

she wondered if he would see her
in the same way as when
he handed
the flower
to her
                 so many years ago
    or if he would know
exactly what to say
in the same way
as he had
so many tomorrows
later.
                                   
               she
had never stopped remembering
even as the wrinkles began to
line her face
what it was like to taste
the air
when he was near.
but she had been married by then
and so had he-
it wasn't the same
as it had been
              when
they were young,
drowning in the sun,
playing in a patch of flowers
like the very one
she held
between index and thumb.

"forty years is a long time to
be away," she said into the phone.

"far too long to be alone in the
company of others," he replied.

he
had lost his wife
the weekend before Christmas.
she
had lost her love
six years ago, this past April.
In June, she suddenly recalled
his face, and found the dried little
flower in a box, tucked away
in the closet
where she only kept precious things.

she looked him up
and found
he still lived in the same small town
where she had worn a frown
the day she had left him behind ...
in fact,
             he lived in the same small
house where they had first met
when she fell from her bicycle
and scraped her knee
and he came out to see
if he could be
of any help
to the little girl crying.

fondly,
             she remembered how
inseparable they had been
back then
when
life
wasn't so complicated.

you see,
there was a time
     when a little girl
of a certain color
    and
           a little boy
of another color
would have been frowned upon
  for holding hands
in a patch of flowers
                     under the sun
like the very one
she held between
                   index and thumb.

the thought made her numb,
how some
could succumb
to ignorance
as if it were bliss.
but she had wasted forty years
and dried too many tears
on what others insisted she be.
"and now," she thought aloud, "is the time
for me,
a time where
i can finally be
with the man i hold
such fond memories."

and when she boarded the plane,
she knew life would never be the same.
for now, she could finally get on
with living.

she
      landed in a small town
just before sunset
with a single chest
that contained
all that remained
               of her life before.

as she walked down the ramp,
she noticed a man
holding the same
pressed flower
as the one she held in her own hand,
and there was a smile on his face
just like the one he wore
so many yesterdays before
when he had planted it.

"forty years is a long time to
be away," he whispered in her ear.

"far too long not to be with
the one you love," she said
like a smile
on the lips
of he
who planted it.