Self Portrait 13

Firstly you need to know that she doesn’t exist – but, as Ian Dury sang, if she didn’t exist I’d have to invent her.

So here she is.

In a city house, not married but living as if she is, l am single. There are prints on the wall, the frames are homemade but the content is lost to memory.

She is too – light, soft, dancing on the edge of awareness.

Smiling – in the eyes mainly, and her lips.

There is a sense of mischievousness, then she is gone.

Just a memory.

Time passes, rivers flow under bridges and she is there again. This time I am married, or as if, she is distant and I watch her from far.

She is still smiling, her eyes are bright, the mischievousness is stronger.

A defiance.

A majestic defiance.

Then she is gone.

Time passes again, bridges are burnt.

I see her in a bar, her eyes meet everyone who enters.

And? They ask, but still they smile.

What is about her?

Impossible to fathom.

A sprite.

An enchanted being.

And then, gone.

Time ages.

I stand next to her in a garden, closer now, near enough to touch.

I look around, she’s gone.

She moves south, north, west, I stay still.

If I watch I get giddy.

Then a shadow passes, as shadows must.

And then she is there,

The shadow follows.

Waiting.

Closer now than she ever has been.

Clothed in shadow.

These sort of stories have no beginning, no end.

Tonight she is alone.

She will sleep soon.

In the morning she will rise and break her night's fast..

Toast.

And the green fresh fruit of a new day.