The Long Take

On an empty screen, we watch a crepuscular moonrise,gooseberries still damp with dew, the fluttering of a pigeon—ormaybe, a heartbeat—in the belly, in the eardrum. Still-warmpillows, lipstick-stained teeth, silver fog spilling over analogoceans, the ocherous smell of dipspit in a copper bowl, cannedpeaches floating in too-thick syrup, chokecherry branches,persimmoned light. A man named Will, gone now, whose dipspitfilled the copper bowl.A handful of Hot Tamales and popcorn slippery with artificialbutter, we're rollerskating on a precipice with Chaplin and here isone first kiss, brilliant and underwhelming, and a kitchen timermarking our swiftly approaching endings, and under the light ofsome unknown planet I give one M&M to a boy sitting next to mewho's holding out his palm out like he knows me or something.The cinema, Deleuze writes, must film, not the world, but belief inthis world, our only link.Blushing pains, the scent of red licorice on our fingers (plastic,celestial), a drive-thru milkshake, nighttime swim practice,chlorinated skin, falling asleep listening to the Carpenters, velvetdarkness and shadows pouring through a glittering glass eyeball,watching Crazy, Stupid, Love without you on a flight from Atlantato Salt Lake. Your disappointment, my betrayal, continually.A man named Will, gone now, who chewed tobacco whilewatching reruns of Wheel of Fortune and Judge Judy.You and I, we hear a thicket of women's voices: murmurs offevered visions, laughter at God, at each other, and at the way griefskews temporal flow, makes me feel all the time wrong aboutbeing someplace. Like I'm in a movie theater with all the lightsturned on and the projectionists are packing up, going home,murmuring the slow abandonment of goodbye. They all move on.