by Susan Abraham

One day, she may catch him in the twilight from where he once slipped, in the blight of the night.
For now, she rests in her bane of tiredness, walled into a cocoon of defeat.
She has no name.
Once, she may have been considered something of a dame, but now she hangs her head in quiet shame.
And yet not quite.
Sometimes, on a feathered whim, she dares herself to dream a lullaby of him.
She thinks she must fly the sky, make a plan from wit and move swiftly before it is too late but cushioned in its ill-fated prime, her thoughts move more slowly then they ever did.
She realises with a forlorn air that she is the writer quite alone and that he is gone.
They were so close, in some ways, he knew her better than she imagined.
He masterminded each day that she wrote her play and loved her script and for her, that made a hearty party.
He felt more keenly for one of her characters and knew each better than she did herself.
Did he pack the flavour and essence of her story, for his journey?
She asks now as she basks in the darkness, curled up in her utter blindness.
In time to come, she will steal a marble seat from her heartbeat and place him there, her king with wings.
She will dress him in a pre-Raphaelite pose and sculpt his memory to the scent of a rose.
And when his name crops up in later years, she will remember through her tears...yes, he had a tendency too... wasn't he clever at... how beautiful that time when she and he....
She will dare herself to stare away with just that squint of a giveaway glare...a remembered vision from the well of her secret imagination.
Him on his seat...a marbled clone and she next to him...her chair a graveyard cobblestone.
One day, she may catch him in the twilight, in the slight stride of the evening light.

Note: This Pre-Rapaelite picture titled Flaming June is a free jpeg.