End To End, or Beginning to Beginning. Either Way, There Were Tiny Ears Involved

We watched the sun rise up with a calm fury over the Atlantic ocean—wine, arms around one another, bundled against the cold, full of life and hope. The flames licked up out of the ocean like a mighty Phoenix, gentle waves breaking like timid children on the shores, seagulls coasting lazily on air currents looking for fish or garbage to snatch up and fight over. I leaned over and whispered gently into your unnaturally tiny ear, “I love you.”
When the sun fully cleared the horizon we gathered up our few things, dropped the empty bottle into the proper receptacle, it clanking jarringly into an empty 50-gallon oil drum that had become a garbage can, and we were off to the airport, into our cramped coach seats. We watched a shitty Jennifer Aniston movie with no sound, held hands, napped with heads on shoulders, cursed what they referred to as orange juice.
We raced the sun across the country, one small layover in Texas. I bought an issue of Harpers that I wouldn’t finish for 3 months, you bought some Sour Patch straws, and we arrived on the shores of the might Pacific at a little before dusk.
Another bottle of wine, basking in the warm evening heat, watching the revelers as they volleyed and laughed and walked and ran, tan skin against tan sand, pelicans coasting smoothly with calm determination just inches above the water, our arms around one another again, pleasantly buzzed on sale-priced wine.
The sun dropped lower, lower, and lower, turning the sky and ocean colors that have yet to be reproduced by humans, it sank into finality, waves crashing in white foam and brilliant sounds of hiss and crumble, and you leaned back and whispered into my average-sized ear, “I love you too.”
[6-26-2010]