Fine Feathers

He’ll come once or twice each week, an hour or two before closing, sit gaze and shoes perpendicular to the bench with a dark coat or jacket or mouth cracked open, and see you for all you are.

All you are is a lifetime of forethought, a line of a feather-brush, a landscape of finity. You came with purpose and you stand with purpose, wield the shovel only you could lift from the stone-turned soil — if you wanted to and you don’t, won't; you’re the centre piece, piece de resistance, you’re the woman you’ve never seen, the black-chipped crow, the flipped bucket, the rough stroke of sun, the willow weeping; they are you and here for you. You’re the years in mind and months at a canvas, you’re of no time at all.

Good day, he’ll say, to everyone for he’ll be well-mannered, but not to you. He’ll greet with his face much as his words and hat and hands — his hands. The hat will be a good hat, a respectable hat, brimmed to fashion and politeness, but his hands will be more so, better so. They’ll be doctor’s hands, surgeon’s hands — surgically clean and doctorly steady. Or maybe they’ll be lawyer’s hands, charismatic and gesturing, fingertips tapping out a yes I hear you triangle, spreading wide, wide enough to sunder a sea or a world or a mind or lapels of a dress if he so pleases. Does he so please?

Beautiful work, he’ll say one day, the day you meet and don’t meet. The most beautiful I’ve seen.

Beautiful work, he’ll say again, maybe to a woman tying shoelaces, but she won’t listen — they never listen, not the way you will, the way you do, the way he deserves. The intricacy of the details, the chiaroscuro, sfumato, do you see the layers of the hues, how he blended the colours of her dress with the grass?

A woman — that’s how he’ll think of you, won’t know you’re too the grass and the hues and the blend which binds them. For you it’ll be his words to blend, a hiss of wheat and a crunch of dirt and a crackling of logs, warm and bright, bright as the pallor of his face, the stiffening of his collar, his eyes small and watery with a hint of cerulean blue, a spark in the dark, dull, faceless miasma of other faces. If you’re a woman to him, this woman, the hem of her dress, the invisible worm crawling the shaft of your shovel — you’ll be, and you’ll be glad for it.

He’ll come once or twice a week, and love you more each time — you’ll know because you’ll see and you’ll know because he’ll say. To everyone, anyone: a crumpled old lady once he reads her the pamphlet, a girl with pigtails he’ll prop up on the bench to see you better, a bored man that won’t listen and tell him instead of his car loan and how they are all bastards, all of them. They are. Some meaninglessly meander the halls, others rush through routine routes as if forced to — some are, big-mouthed kids with distracted eyes; they disregard, disgrace, dismiss, touch and blind your inmates with flash, look away. Not him.

Your man will be the friendliest, gentlest, wisest of them all — will offer hands and advice, will tour the place until you can no longer see the straight lines of his trousers, will speak of elation and ingenuity, underdrawings and glazes, inspiration and fate. Loyal and reliable, he’ll always come back to look for you, at you, sit with you until the day grows wearier than him.

Age will plough his face, clay it to an abalone grey — prematurely, because he thinks so much and so hard, too hard. On occasion, he’ll herd in friends, acquaintances, women with golden hoops pierced through their faces, men with hats flatter and less cared for than his, people whose gazes will slide off you, people for whose gazes you won’t care. One woman he’ll bring twice, blonde and twitching, sharp and odd like her blunt nails biting creases into his sleeve. He’ll speak to her gently, with good humour, attentive and affectionate and absolutely enamoured. Warm — you’ll think of him, it must be warm to be treated like so. Enchanting, he’ll speak of you. The very essence of art.

One day he’ll come holding a hand of a boy. The hat will be gone and so will all the others — your man will make allowances for fashion, for convenances; he’ll be flexible and adaptable, a tide which moves with the tide.

The boy you won’t like, not at first, not his loud groans and kicking feet, but the more he comes the more he’ll grow into your man — in his eyes, his nose, his thumbs in constant motion — and the more he’ll come the more your man will preach to him, of you but not just you, of life outside, outside of you. The more you’ll love him still.

Your man knows of people and places, he’s educated and opinionated, but he’s modest with his knowledge, his words, his hand in the boy’s fringe, sun-warm, ochre, mottling the chubby cheeks with freckles.

Can we get ice-cream? the boy will ask, and your man will always say yes and they’ll merge back with the opaque crowd; your man’s generous and kind beyond words.

The boy will grow — taller and disdainful, uglier and fast, bored and much unlike your man. He won’t be touched, will shy away when your man attempts to reach for him, will roll his eyes like he can’t hear the brilliance in his words, like he can’t remember the ice-cream or their sleepless nights. There’ll be a foot of space between them at all times, a foot of space you’d fill best with your fragile frame, your timid twinkle.

I want to stay at mum’s today, he’ll say, crisp like a bad word, jacket slung over his shoulder with no care, arms crossed and crossed tighter on a flinch when your man grasps them. And the weekend, too.

Your man’s eyes will be deep and dark and despairing, his mouth but a charcoal line — but that evening, he’ll return, sit on the bench with his polished shoes kissing tip to toe. That day, a day as long and short as any other, the day of all days, he’ll speak to you.

By then you’ll have learned all there is to learn, we will have learned, observed all there is to observe, but the man will speak to you of things new, fresh, a juicy crunch of just-picked apples. New for they are his.

His work absorbs much of his time and brilliance, he’ll mention it only with urgency, the way a doctor would; it is the wife that tarnishes him the most, the wife that smears under his eyes like ash. Dreams and fears will spill out of him, rough water. You’ll stand and listen, pink and ripe, one foot deep in the paint that swamps you, one foot on the road — towards nothing, out, towards him. First you’ll love him from the strings of conversation, then you’ll love him for the symphony of private thought. All of you he'll see, he sees, he knows, your leaves and your clouds and your pencilled skeleton; all of it he’ll explain to you, all of it he admires. You’ll admire him.

The friends will stop coming and so will the boy; your man will come more and more until he’ll be there every day, earlier, snow in his beard, tan on his neck. The scowls he’ll take with grace, speak nothing of them, speak nothing of anyone, just the two of you and art and death and saxophones. His hands and face will shake severe yet tender, his voice rough gravel, scrunched with a cough. All of that you’ll see and to all that you’ll statue through with your evening primrose smile; you love all of him.

The boy will never come with him again, but he’ll come to haunt him. He’ll come as a man, broad-faced and thick boned, cursing and rattling his hand.

You forgot your medicine again, he’ll say to your man, rattle yet louder, shake like he’s been shaking for years, like he hates your man, like he understands nothing of him.

Your man, your rock, won’t move. The boy-man is a Monet painting — from far away you see the shape of him, but up close you can tell he’s nothing, nothing at all but speckles of nonsensical dirt.

Move, he’ll say, a foot away from you, both of you. I’m only here because mum begged me to, I don’t want to waste more time.

Waste more time, he says. No time more wasted than raising him. No time more wasted than this life, the two of them, the four of us.

He’ll take your man away, one day. For days, and days, and weeks, lights in and out, darkness in and in, your man won’t come.

But he — your man — he’ll be loyal, is loyal, loves you with all his heart. He’ll come back to hold you with his eyes, each layer of life, each fine feather, each dab of delicacy. He’ll come back because he loves you, because you are his heart, in his heart and of his heart, because you’re his and he’s yours.

Here’s the corner of your smile, your effervescence tucked into it, blossomed from the primrose to a rose, flamingo pink; none of that Mona Lisa smiles, none of the falsity, a plain palimpsest of patience and peace.

He’ll come because you listen, understand, know it was the world which made him harsh, made him cruel like the women in it — his mother, his wife, all the womanhood in his son, every woman but you, or maybe you most of all, art most of all, the cruellest of them all. You know when he’s sorry and when he’s not.

Here’s the wisp of your hair, one more, one more, a gossamer of eternal breath, your dress waterfalls your waist, your leaves waterlilies of phthalo in the ocean sky. You’re here, stroke by stroke, and there, where you’ll be, where he is, where he’ll be.

He’ll come because he’s not a doctor, or a lawyer, or warm, but to you he’s all. And you’ll hold your shovel, yes, a speckle more of cadmium orange, back bent like so, shaded indigo right here; you’ll know if he’s hurt anyone in anger, in words, in withdrawal – the pain was his, was necessary, was the metric of the stanza, the frame of the canvas.

He’s here because you’re here, he’s you and here for you. He knew from the sketch you'd ruin him. I knew.