Balance

I'm remembering again, the day we stood on the porch and you smoked while the old man told you about his basement full of wine, his bad heart and the doctor's warning, how he held the dusty bottle out to you, glad, he said, to give it away to someone who appreciated its value and spirit, the years it took to settle into its richness and worth. I'm watching again, each cell alive, as you reach for the wine, your forearm exposed below the rolled sleeve, the fine hairs that sweep along the muscle, glowing, lifting a little in the afternoon breeze. I'm memorizing the shape of the moment: your hand and the small bones lengthening beneath the skin as it tightens in the gripping, in the receiving of the gift, the exact texture and color of your skin, and the old man's face, reduced to its essence. That, and the brief second when both of you had a hand on the bottle— the thing not yet given, not yet taken, but held between you, stoppered, full. And my body is flooded again with an elemental joy, holding onto it against another day in the unknowable future when I'm given terrible news, some dark burden I'll be forced to carry. I know this is useless, and can't possibly work, but I'm saving that moment, for balance.