エン

I was sitting across from you, the small plywood table with indelible coffee rings. You were writing in your notepad with your leg on the chair. You were closer to the open window so that I could see both you and the trees beyond where we once said we'd put up a hammock, or some lawn chairs, or anything so quaint.

Do you remember when I told you how I act and move at times like a jolt, so spontaneously, but only after a stepwise decision I've made for myself on the spot? That morning it was how many times you'd visibly pause to think before I decided to lean in and see what you were writing.

Of what I remember:
-Eggs (from the Japanese market)
-Bonito flakes (smoked)
-Laver
-Watermelon

We came back and made okonomiyaki, some seaweed soup. Then you cut up the watermelon into fat slices and we sat outside in the thinner patch of grass while looking out at the water. I remember the thought struck me how much I pictured the day's events before they had happened — the weather, the timing. There was you and me and a time as foregone as the list you had so carefully crafted that morning. I remember how vital I had felt that day apropos of nothing else.

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