Secret Vespers

I want us to make something that will never last. I want to break onto a rooftop with a shovel and leave a picture in the snow. Only a few executives in the buildings still taller will see it; they will wonder about it, and by next snowfall it will be gone.

I want five seconds in slow motion, the camera on your laughter, steam-breathing, in so much detail I can trace the paths the snowflakes fall.

I confess I am terrified of couples who count their anniversaries in knick-knacks and photo album chapters. An instant can last forever and an eternity can flash by in an instant.

I want to write a message for you in the sand, knowing the tide will wash the beach smooth and you might never see it. Uncertainty is delicious. I want to call a perfect stranger and tell him that I love you, that I am bursting to tell you so. I will ask this stranger not to give me advice. Maybe then this need will leave me.

You know, I could never live so little, but I am jealous of the insects who fly for just one day, mate and die.

Photographers take thousands of pictures to keep just one. I want to spend a day with you, build it up to a look, a touch, a sound I will never forget, and never see you again.