moonrise on windswept eve

the long hours sit frozen in their own shadows

I told her to meet me here in this big empty field, and all I found was the wind glass-sharp, dancing over exposed skin like the smallest paper cuts, skipping between heartgreen blades of grass that shiver softly in time. The sun, sinking slowly behind twin hills rising gently to the west, lingers in reflections of doors and windows, hesitant to leave them behind. Long sheets of blue, broken only here and there by faint films of foam, begin to lose their lustre, washed in the pale yellow now staining the long horizon. The cold numbs, yes, but it also makes me feel there, tiny fingers inching across my bare arms, spider legs or pondborne cattails, hair standing on end like ribbons of lighting, racing. 

Small flowers, spots of brilliant white against the verdant plane, dot the grass where I stand; and further, people, occupying their own private plots marked by a colorful blanket or perhaps nothing at all. A vast sea sits between them and me, and between one group and another: but they seem unfazed, content among themselves and the dusk. The murmur of their chatter drifts across the night air, an almost musical hum that I hate just a little, but no more. Is it jealousy? I wonder; in a way. A woman throws her head back with a boundless laugh that lifts itself across the park; the people turn their heads and smile, signaling their approval, their understanding. But I cannot tell if she means it. 

Across the space of green, a man raises a winebottle, holding it aloft for a moment in reverie, then begins to pour its almost-clear contents into rose tinted glasses perched on a plaid blanket, and the last rays of the day catch on its edge, spinning; her eyes flash at him from across the table, her face caught in one of those luminous arrows refracting through the glass, doubly reflected in the growing pool now filling her cup. She smiles twice, each different, one constantly broken by bubbles rippling its liquid surface, the other pristine and still on the film of now settled wine. 

I look up now, hoping to find a waiter to buy one of my own. It’s mostly empty now, the couples who earlier found just enough to say having escaped into the last moments of the day, bathed in gold and a hint of purple as a faint chime announced their departure. Only a few of us remain, silhouetted against the evening, backlit by warm amber lamps nestled behind empty booths, switching on one by one. Shadows pool at our feet, and we grow thick and heavy, trailing off without much of a struggle. Darkness falls over my corner of the café, and my coffee is cold; the chair is hard under me, and I feel a distinct fatigue. I look back to the empty bar out of instinct; but I find that the thought of rosecolored wine now makes me nauseous. 

A girl sits alone by the front window, aglow in twilight, sketching something with a pencil whose thin scratches grow monstrous in this cavernous refuge. Her iceblue eyes catch mine before I let them fall again, accusatory and suspicious, and I study the worn wooden table stained with the years. The pencil resumes its march, and I imagine the world that trails its dull tip. 

Footsteps echo across the thin, empty walls, and I cast a glance at the door, expecting to see her back cast in shadow, pulling itself out into the evening. But she stands in front of me, her worn wool vest torn a bit at the edges and its colors muted with age, her hair falling lazily in front of her eyes; and in the amber lamplight I notice a thin smile on her lips, both playful and serious. We stare at each other, eyes making careful drawings of one another, erasing them only to start again; and in those mischievous evening eyes that meticulously reduce me to a picture of myself, I find the terrifying truth that the only thing she could have been sketching was my face, over and over again, each time different but never quite right. 

I stood up in a hurry, and made for the door. Something held me for a moment, and I turned back for only a glance. Meet me in the park at sunset, I said, and still she just looked, iceblue eyes into mine. The door chimed once, and a dry breeze scraped over my face, cold as the night.