“I know this one!” You grab me by the hand and at once I am dizzy. I am pulled forward, whisked atop some effervescent radio hit, suddenly sparkly and aperol-fizzed in a way that is only you.  

          If you were split down the middle, you would part splendidly, all vibrance and perfect symmetry, like a clementine. I almost saw it once, when we were girls and you bestowed upon us mighty reign over our bedroom, slipping atop our feather-pillow fortress as you scurried to make room for me, head kissing the floor in a resounding crack. Our mother was so agonized by the sight of you oozing out onto our tangerine carpet that she took to stress-picking, leaving little piles of eyelashes on the kitchen counter in the wake of each reckless pursuit. Although less thrilling post-reprimand, that winter was just as holy, spent painting our nails a patchy coral pink under ivory ribbons of moonlight, so little that each toe was a single stroke of polish, wielded, of course, with the ferocity of a mighty swordswoman. 

          I am almost distracted, caught up in your song, your smile, your hand in mine, when I see it.

          It lingers, over there, and over there, a moment achingly tender, fall-off-the-bone perfect. It is ordinary and yet so ubiquitous it must be divine: You, in the purple of your mouth, a fanged vacuum for blackberries come early autumn’s picking season, our father would tease. You, in the ditzy spin of my cocktail umbrella, pancake-stuffed and twirling through the kitchen on socked pointe. You, in that stubborn hangnail, ivory and not yet sharp, a perfect waning moonshape, right there, on me. Us, in the champagne flute of a passing waiter, lazing tummy-up in the watery casts of that big runny yolk in the sky. We would trap its reflection in cupped palms, laughing underwater like geysers, liquid gold gliding between pruny fingers: slippery, elusive. I blink and you slip through my fingers like water.  

          Remembering is like biting into an orange rind. Each time, I am struck with a bittersweetness so pungent that it sticks sourly to the roof of my mouth. I let myself believe that I have found you all around me, but when I look down it is just me in my skin. I am alone in it. 

          I want to take out bits of me and push it down, crack, and make room for you. I want to peel each reverie to the pith and swallow what I can hold of you in one toothless bite. I want to be hallowed, grotesque  – the warped moulting of what’s left of someone; and I want your voice, declaring proudly, eyes on mine, “I know this one.” I want to look down at my skin and see the theology of us: little scars from tireless autumn scavenging amidst the blackberry brambles, red skin peeling at the knuckles from our sunbaked summers on the lake; and at once I am sick of you and beg to pluck from me the bits of you that reign over my periphery and leave them in a tidy pile on the kitchen counter to rot.

          I prayed to god last night and his mouth smelled of aperol and I think I died with you a little.