When I Married Halld R Laxness

I watched the froth go down and the yellow liquid rise to meet it. I twisted the glass around and it tipped over and spilled on his arthritic knee. I looked to the side and didn’t apologize. His beautiful bony fingers flicked off the foam in separate particles as if it was incidental lint he had finally noticed.

The decision is yours now.

He rubbed the liquid into his pant leg. I sighed. Either decision I make will kill something.

And so, you want to hang in this ether land forever?

Yes.

And if I pulled your hair?

And if I scalded your mouth?

And if I made a teepee of birch billets with you in the centre?

Look at me.

No.

He went away.

Next night the phone rang.

I’ll meet you at Glacier and First Point. You must be exact.

I’ll be there for three evenings.

For three nights I wore myself ragged but couldn’t find where.

Friday evening the doorbell rang. He handed me two books by Aksel Sandemose. I put my fingers exactly where his warm fingerprints still lingered on the top book and closed the door. I read and waited.

(There was a tidal wave and a woman went from window to window with a candle in her hand as her house floated out the bay. They rescued her in St. Lawrence.)

When you are ready, if ever, light your own candle.

Two years later, my hand shook as I held the match. His hair had greyed around the temples and he crippled shyly.

Five years later, two babies look hauntingly like him. He is chopping wood in the backyard. He stops.

Look at me. I fooled you years ago. Glacier is in Iceland and I tore out all the pages where it was written in that book. Do you regret that we called the babies Abstract and Zero? Come feel Aunt Hilda and Didymus under my fingernails.

His gentle laugh ripped the night sky, and I got pregnant again.

Copyright ©: 
Agnes Walsh

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• Madonna poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love’s Unity poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love’s Harvest poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Lost poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• “Look up, desponding hearts! See, Morning sallies” poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Let The Weary World Go Round poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• “`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law” poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Is Life Worth Living? poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• Inflexible As Fate poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• In The Month When Sings The Cuckoo poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin
• In Sutton Woods poem – Alfred Austin by Alfred Austin

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