First Pieces of Collage

“I knew when you came around the corner into my kitchen.”

My signature cardigan and scarf, colored with the pine needles I smell from Utah and the glittery stripes of a Florentine market. Black with buckles, I zip off the leather boots I didn’t wear for a year for fear of unwanted remarks—now I take compliment in their title: motorcycle boots. Now they add confidence. In this moment my breathing is coming easily and the head aching that had me nauseous on the couch an hour ago has graciously decided to depart. Thankfully. I’ve prayed it away. It’s gone.

My hairline is crisp and a head shake sends trendy salon shampoo through the entryway in wafts. There is a mute on the voicebox of the next room—but I see light over there. Light that’s golden. Nothing to make jewelry from or to pound into plates, rather an intangible metal. It reaches out to me and I am wrapped up in golden arms, feel golden palms on the center of my back. Push. They whisper—arms and hands—that there’s something to see. Pat, pat, pat, forward on the hardwood and I am beneath a doorway. I round the bend into a room of shining. And he stands to greet me.