Ivy

Dearest,

I watched you in the markets today.

You didn’t know I was there but I was: behind the stall of lilies, around the corner from the cinnamon scrolls and hazelnut coffee, I was there. And I saw you, how could I not see you; bathed in the golden light of the weekend that hovered over the crowd but only on your skin did it settle and glow. I yearned to get close enough to smell the sticky scent of honey.

You were wearing the dress I love on you, the one of soft fabric the same colour as your eyes. It reminded me of our summers, when I’d come home from work to find you lying in the back yard reading, the strap fallen off one shoulder, the smooth cocoa of your upper thigh peeking out from the hitched hem.

You were sitting at a table in the food market, eating a plate of what looked like lentil dahl. I never knew how good vegetarian was until you. I could taste it as I watched you eat, my mouth swelling with flavours of cumin and coriander.

I saw the thought occur to you before you did I think; the little wrinkle in your brow, the sudden match of light struck in your eyes. You quickly scavenged through your bag, coming out only with a pen. Your napkin, I whispered as you noticed the small white blank square resting under your plastic plate. I waited as the nib of your pen hovered. I waited and I waited. I stopped breathing. I waited. And then your ink pot spilled over and the lentil dahl went cold as the napkin filled with the black lace of your words. My breath was shaky, my hands were quivering, there was nothing else in my life that felt the way it felt to watch you write. A rebellious curl fell into your eyes that went ignored as you scribbled across your napkin. I ached for your words, your ivy of words that coiled around me and squeezed things I didn’t know existed out of my heart.

Suddenly, it was over. You put your pen down and finished your dahl. And then you gathered your lilies wrapped in newspaper and your bag of apples and you disappeared into the market crowd.

Of course I waited until you were gone before I lunged upon your empty table, lifting up your napkin as though it were an intact web of a spider. My eyes burned as I focused on the first line, the tendrils of ivy slowly starting to squeeze.

Dearest,
I watched you at the markets today.
You didn’t know I was there.
But I was.

copyright © 2008, Holly Ringland.

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Tags:

black, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, green, hazelnut, holly, honey, ivy, lace, lilies, loss, love, markets, napkin, newspaper, ringland, summer, tendrils, words, writer and yearning