mariah in a free write

when she is in the kitchen the movements are slow, as are the breaths, the exhales are long spoons. she knows a bean, what it will make in our bodies how it grows she washes them and the pleasure is in the mystery of sustenance nothing about sensuality or thrill. each plate has color, fills it up like cattle in a pasture. no plate is wasted. her side of greens looks more like she is making temporary shelter heaped tall and built up with pieces of other scraps, carrots, onion. when we sit down to eat she looks into me before eating. settles the bones up against the chair. she lets me chat my way out of my nervous animal body. when I have found my mouth, and hands, and bare feet—she can begin her story of the day, which is usually short and funny and sturdy as if she if building furniture for her mind to sit in. so far my tasks have been to light the candle on our table, pull out the chairs, and stack up our day in a corner so there is room for us to sit. when we are done, I put away the spices and sauces, she without any language at all picks up the sticky silverware and plates and takes them to the sink where she will end the ritual. I won’t ever get myself to like the fermented smell of dirty dishes, or the grime under my fingernails. The act seems to be a separate and not of the whole and so I want to rush through it so I can land again. But she runs the water till its warm and suds the plates as if she were bathing our children’s backs. I leave her, and piddle around our room until she done. Before bed I count the day winding down to its lowest volume by the code of zippers and Velcro and the sweep of fabric on the wood floor. She is packing her lunch, her bike locks, ironing her shirt and pants, and then hanging them on the knob of the front door. all of these steps so that she can slip out the bedroom door at 6:30, with no sound but socks, and leave me heavy and stretched and sweaty in our blue sheets. The sheets that in the morning I will air out its bed breath, caused by its tongue of two warm bodies by pulling them down to the floor and opening the window as far as it can go. Before I get up, I roll over, instinctually I guess to the side she has been sleeping on. Her side always seems less tight, more worn, and smells like her hair and her face, almond and citrus and bright salt. She gets up and stretches the miles of her limbs out on the floor of our cold living room until the muscles have warmed and opened their eyes. She puts on her work clothes, followed by the reflector vest that she wears on her bike. She ties up her hair, brushes her teeth slow and gently, then using her pink rubber gum stimulator in circles over her bubblegum pink gums. Her mouth is a temple of clean nuns, each tooth is a face of paper. Her mouth is so tidy, I look into it and make plans for a bed and a desk inside a shell. Night is time for my mind sneak out of its room and roam the places it sholdn’t; I heat up with worry, I am both the teenager and the sick mother, splitting like wood from each other. I’ve tried sleeping pills, all sorts of pills, aromatherapies, watching movies, reading books. but at night the mind winds up and spins like clockwork. when she gets into bed finally, she picks up her book, lifts her elbow and lets me in to the triangle of her arm and shoulder and torso. This is the only place where the mind will rest.